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ELECTED 
POEMS 



ELECTED 
POEMS 

by 
EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR 



SAN FRANCISCO 

A. M. ROBERTSON 

M CM VII 



l}Bfl.*RY of CONGRESS 

Two CoD»€S Received 

MAY 15 »90r 

Couynght Cniry 

CthA z.t9i>n 

CUSs.CC aXCm No. 
CfOFY B. 



Copyright igoy 
By Edward Robeson Taylor 






Printed by 
San Francisco 



TO MY SONS 

EDWARD DE WITT TAYLOR 

AND 



*^ HENRY HUNTLY TAYLOR 



THIS VOLUME IS 
DEDICATED 



PREFATORY NOTE 

The justification for the publication of this volume 
(exclusive of that which goes to the seeming present 
indifference to the work of the poet) lies in the fact that 
the unsold copies of the author's two books, "Visions 
and other Verse" and "Into the Light and other 
Verse," were destroyed in the great fire. The latter 
having been issued about a week before that time, 
nearly the whole of its edition was lost. Under these 
circumstances Mr. A. M. Robertson, a publisher of San 
Francisco, who is a friend of the poets and a believer 
in the value of their work, suggested that the author 
make for publication by him selections from the two 
books above mentioned. Hence the present volume, 
there having been added to the selections several pieces 
written since the fire. It might be well to state that 
"Into the Light" was independently published in paper 
covers in the latter part of the year 1901. That edition 
(1,500 copies in number) was about exhausted at the 
time of the incorporation of the poem in the volume 
entitled "Into the Light and other Verse." Since its 
first publication seventeen stanzas have been added to 
it, eight of which appear here for the first time. 

E. R. T. 
San Francisco, March 23, 1907. 



[vii] 



TABLE OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK 



Into the Light .... 


. 3 


Fancy's Children 


21 


Imagination ..... 


. 25 


San Francisco — I . . . , 


29 


San Francisco — II .... 


. 30 


San Francisco — III . . . , 


31 


San Francisco — IV 


. 32 


San Francisco — V 


33 


San Francisco — VI 


. 34 


Visions ..... 


37 


The Days of Old .... 


. 38 


In Time of May 


39 


A Summer Day .... 


. 40 


In Time of Autumn 


41 


A Winter Day .... 


. 42 


The Dreams of Long Ago 


43 


Symphony ..... 


. 45 


In Jefferson Square, San Francisco 


47 


At the Presidio of San Francisco 


. 48 


In Union Square, San Francisco 


49 


Beauty ..... 


. 50 


An Arizona Cactus 


51 


Under a Pine at the Grand Canyon 


. 52 


To the Grand Canyon . 


53 


In the Petrified Forest, Arizona . 


. 54 


A Lizard of the Petrified Forest 


55 


The Sawmill .... 


. 56 



[ix] 



To Beauty 

Music 

The Shepherdess 

The Return from the Raid 

The Unfinished Portrait 

William Keith 

To the Sonnet . 

Poetic Art 

Insight 

The Homeric Combat 

From a Winnower of Grain to the Winds 

In November .... 

My Bohemia — a Fantasy 

Shakespeare's Seventy-Third Sonnet 

The Eagles 

The Cock 

Boat Song 

Mother's Love 

My Secret 

The Lady's Answer 

Song 

The Rose 

In the Convent Garden 

In Memory . 

Come Near me when I Sleep 

Ulysses and Calypso 

Theseus and Ariadne 

Cleopatra 

An Opera Cloak . 



[X] 



/ 



Dante and Beatrice .... 


. 84 


Edelweiss . . . . . 


85 


Too Late ..... 


. 86 


Impotence . . . . , 


87 


The Queen ..... 


. 87 


Woman's Love . . . . . 


88 


The Poet to his Lady in Death — I 


. 89 


The Poet to his Lady in Death — II . 


90 


The Poet to his Lady in Death — III . 


. 91 


To Goethe . . . . . 


92 


Pope ...... 


. 93 


The Poet ..... 


93 


To Balzac on reading his Memoir by Miss 




Wormeley .... 


. 94 


Browning .... 


95 


Oscar Wilde ..... 


. 96 


After a Reading in Longfellow 


97 


To Milton ..... 


. 98 


The Balance .... 


99 


Life and Death .... 


. 100 


Imprisoned .... 


100 


The True Course .... 


. 101 


Work 


102 


Adversity ..... 


. 103 


My Sonnet Prison 


104 


Rome ...... 


. 105 


By the Roadside . . . , 


106 


Morning ..... 


. 107 


Night ..... 


108 



[xi] 



Mystery 

The Record 

In a Church . 

The Happiness of this World 

The Generations 

Christmas Bells 

Christmas Hymn 

Faith 

Work and Service 

The Mystic 

Not Dead 

Life's Blend 

The Poem . 

Life's Jewels 

Riches 

Question . 

Ambition 

In all the Days 

Unkissed 

Arria 

Perpetua 

Dream Music 

Memories 

Question . 

Vacancy 

O Moment Stay! 

The Soul 

Voices 

Ghosts 



[xii] 



The Divine Order 

Concord 

Can this be Day? 

The Pity of it 

Mystery of Mysteries 

Chastening . 

The Fog Rolls In . 

Her Resting Place . 

Mourn Not 

Roses for Him 

Out of the Shadow 

To Death 

In the Cemetery of . . 

Reconciliation 

In Time of November 

Refuge 

Now 

Attainment . 

With the Lark . 

With the Eagle 

Concentration 

Edure Thou Faltering Soul 

Consecration 

Compensation 

My Muse . 

Scorn not the Singer 

The Poet to Himself . 

The Music of Words 

The Passion for Perfection 

Whither 

[ xiii ] 



133 
134 
135 
135 
136 
136 
137 
137 
138 
139 
141 
142 
142 
145 
145 
146 
146 
147 
148 
149 
150 
151 
152 
153 
154 
155 
156 
157 
158 
159 



INTO THE LIGHT 



INTO THE LIGHT 

Let us choose to us judgment; let us know among ourselves 
what is good. — Job xxiv-4. 

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth 
knowledge. — Psalms xix-2. 

What dost thou see when without thee thou lookest, O all-searching 

Man? 
Life, ever life, amid changes by multiplex rhythms controlled — 
Rhythms that throb without end in immensity's vastness 

of space, 
Mingling and blending in chorus which sings of the Order 

Divine. 

What dost thou see when within thee thou lookest, O all-searching 

Man? 
Thee as a spirit and atom of all the mysterious whole; 
Giving as well as receiving, bound to the infinite past. 
Made by and making thy future that stretches eternally on. 

I 

And now, dear friend, weary and sick at heart 
With what thou hast been and with what thou art. 
Come, let us sit beneath this age-worn pine. 
Where Nature's self may heal thee of thy smart. 

II 

For here there broods such feeling of repose, 
Such soothing quiet all around us flows. 
That for the blessed time life seems to hush 
Its doubtful triumphs and its certain woes. 



[3] 



Ill 

Ah, well-a-day, what heart has not its pains, 
Its grievous losses, incommensurate gains. 
And as result of all the strenuous strife. 
What little profit at the last remains! 

IV 

By thoughts like these we are at times oppressed; 
But who the loss or profit can attest? 
Our glass we see through darkly, and full oft 
What seemed the worst was in the end the best. 

V 

In these unclouded heavens no stars we see. 

Yet all roll there in sovran majesty; 

So, when thy sky seems reft of every star, 

In quenchless light they still may live for thee. . . 

VI 

The bubbles dancing on convivial wine. 
The restful dewdrops on the procreant vine. 
But symbolize each being life has known: 
All vanish at a breath and leave no sign. 

VII 

We meet insatiate death at every turn; 
Life's brightest candles flicker as they burn; 
While lone oblivion pours forevermore 
Her flood lethean from exhaustless urn 



[4] 



VIII 

Thus sayest thou, as has been said before 

In various iteration o'er and o'er; 

But canst thou mete or weigh the least of lives? 

And if earth's work be done, why askest more? 

IX 
Lament not o'er the failures of the Past, 
Nor fondly hope thy Future may be cast 
Where Victory holds for thee some fadeless wreath;- 
The Present only is thy first and last. 

X 

Nor seek to blot the record of thy years 
With self -condemning, uneffectual tears; 
But let thy page be such that day by day 
Still less and less the evil there appears. 

XI 
Beat all thy moments into links of gold. 
Whose uncorroding chain may serve to hold 
Thy anxious spirit fast to Faith's firm rock. 
As Doubt's engulfing waves are round thee rolled. 

XII 

It cannot matter, for we are so small 

A part of the immeasurable All, 

Is what thy demon whispers in thine ear 

When pleasures lure thee as when shadows fall. 

[5] 



XIII 

But know that every eon which has gone 
Before thee since life's earliest breath was drawn 
Has helped compound thee into what thou art — 
A deathless spirit moving on and on; 

XIV 

And that the tiniest creature's slenderest strain 
In loneliest wilderness is not in vain, 
But makes inseparable part of all 
That fills Divinity's unending reign. 

XV 

All things and elements are kin to thee, 
As are the cones of this imperial tree 
To every member of the host of stars — 
Ay, even to those no telescope may see. 

XVI 

Couldst thou but learn to feel, without surcease. 
Though woes and dangers round thee still increase, 
Thyself as part of the eternal scheme, 
Thy soul might anchor in the port of Peace — 

XVII 

The eternal scheme whose order as divine 
Thou mayst not question, with its blazing sign 
Above and round thee, and its rhythmic note 
Forever ringing in that heart of thine. 

[6] 



XVIII 
How full, how rich is life! Dear God, did we 
But ope our eyes and dare with faith to see 
Thy splendors hearted with untainted joys. 
Each pulse would thrill with sudden ecstasy. 

XIX 

O garniture of glory round us spread. 
By Beauty's crystal streams forever fed, 
Divine expression of the mind divine. 
Unchanging, changing, fleeing yet not fled! 

XX 

O Music, throned within the heart of things. 
What tribute to thee every being brings! 
What waves of thine through space's vastness roll! 
What notes of thine great Nature ever sings! 

XXI 

Upon thy multitudinous waves how we, 

Far borne beyond the veil of being, see 

Some glimpse of that which keeps the vastitudes 

Forever bound in ordered harmony. 

XXII 
Mysterious all; yet that proud sun which prints 
Upon yon mountain-peak such gorgeous tints, 
Holds not one secret greater than the grass 
Which at our feet its wonders humbly hints. 

[7] 



XXIII 

The Sphinx outlives the myriad ones who ask 
The cause and reason of their burdening task, 
And with her silent lip and stony gaze 
Still ever wears impenetrable mask. 

XXIV 

And though the crown of life sat on her brow, 
While hottest blood her bosom did avow, 
With her great head encasing brain as great, 
She would be answerless e'en then as now. . . , 



XXV 

How very little is the most that's known; 
By what sore travail man has slowly grown; 
What luring heavens have led him to despair; 
What dreadful hells have made his soul their own! 

XXVI 
What is he more than atomy that wings 
Its predetermined flight mid other things 
That breathe a moment, then unheeded pass 
To where no note of being ever sings? .... 



XXVII 

Wail as thou wilt, but can thy loudest cry 
Be more than vain, inconsequential sigh? 
And art thou blinded so by Evil's bane 
As not to see the Good which blazes nigh? 

[8] 



XXVIII 
Man's tears are many, but in them deep rest 
The noblest things that stir the human breast; 
Were all the joys beneath the heavens his, 
He might be happy, but could scarce be blest. 

XXIX 
Who hath not felt the wings of suffering bear 
His spirit to ethereal regions where 
The seeming perdurable clouds dissolved, 
While newer worlds burst on him unaware? 

XXX 

Ah then, as harmonies around him roll. 
He makes a fresh companion of his soul, 
While voices whisper in his ravished ear 
That Faith will light him to each worthy goal; 

XXXI 
And if for him should dawn some heavy day 
Big with the things which breed the heart's dismay, 
That smiling Love would hasten to his side. 
To give him conquering strength upon his way. 

XXXII 

Then clear thy vision, and as now the prayer 
Of parting day stirs all the silent air. 
With thine own soul the covenant renew. 
Thy cross through Duty's thorniest to bear. 

[9] 



XXXIII 
For 'tis no mystery that some task is thine, 
For thee to make it, if thou wilt, divine. 
And that while work remains for thee to do, 
Do it thou must, nor weaken nor repine. 

XXXIV 
Whether it be what men deem high or low 
'Tis not for thee to question or to know. 
But that thou knead thy heart's best blood in it 
Is thy concern, nor cease to make it so; 

XXXV 

For shouldst thou slight it in the least, or pause 
To quaff the nectar of the world's applause. 
Or nurse, self-satisfied, a base content. 
Thou art a traitor to thy dearest cause. 

XXXVI 
'Tis said that Youth's for action. Age for thought; 
But Duty is the guide — all else is nought; 
And wilt thou note the silver in thy hair. 
Or float in dream, when deeds are to be wrought? 

XXXVII 

And dost thou picture an immortal life 
Where work is not and happiness is rife; 
Where Passion dies upon the bed of ease. 
And Pain wields nevermore its dreadful knife? 

[10] 



XXXVIII 
'Tis thus to deem that thy imperfect soul 
Is fitted for a new, eternal role 
Of flawless perfectness; 'tis thus to make 
A childish, changeless bliss thine utmost goal. 

XXXIX 
If endless life be thine how canst thou be, 
When disembodied from thy flesh, set free 
From all thy past — thy spirit newly made? 
Death cannot work such miracle in thee. 

XL 

What far-gone age on age, what power on power. 
Conspired ere this wee, unpretending flower 
Could hold its sweet communion with us here. 
To heap the measure of this golden hour! 

XLI 

No single stroke can alter or create: 
Continuous flows the river of thy fate. 
As it will flow with all its good and ill 
Through Death's dark-mantled, unimpeding gate. 

XLII 

Thou art a spirit now no less than when 
Thy form has vanished from the sight of men; 
Thy home the Universe, where none may dare 
To bound the farthest limits of thy ken. 

[11] 



XLIII 

But if by wasting of thy natural might 
Thy soul has added nothing to its height, 
How durst thou hope for perfectness or ease, 
Or with celestial raiment to be dight? 

XLIV 

And didst thou know none other life could be 
Than this which holds such treasured wealth for thee. 
Thy Duty's star would burn as bright as though 
It lit thy path to immortality. 

XLV 
Words cannot save thee though they be of gold 
Beyond all value earth has ever told, 
And though with collocation's art they seem 
From out divinest sources to have rolled. 

XLVI 
The generations ever come and go 
On vasty seas of blended joy and woe, 
But what the deep-hid meaning of it all 
It matters not for curious thee to know. 

XLVII 
It only matters if thy conscience sleep. 
Or thou the golden hours in bondage keep. 
Or if some deed, or word, or look of thine. 
Should cause the angels of the soul to weep. 

[12] 



XLVIII 

Enjoy the day, as Horace says, is well; 
To lounge and drink with Omar, as we tell 
Our loves to every moment of the day, 
Is with enchantment for the time to dwell; 

XLIX 

But these are condiments and not the bread 
Wherewith life's feast is nourishingly spread, 
And deem thou not with diet such as theirs 
A starving soul in bounty can be fed. 

L 

Know thou the Gods are good to him who bears 
Unvanquished stoutly on; who in despair's 
Entangling web weaves many a thread of hope; 
While all the stars light him that boldly dares. 

LI 

What matters if the temple's ruin lies 
With none for mourner save the grass which sighs 
Where once the goddess undisputed reigned 
Amid the joyance of her people's cries? 

LII 

Why shouldst thou waste unnecessary tears 
Because along the roadside of the years 
Are strewn the wrecks of many a star-crowned fame 
That once enravished unremembered ears? 

[13] 



LIII 

And e'en the Parthenon — that matchless thing 
Which still in beauty's sky on broken wing 
Soars as the chosen one death would not slay — 
Why should the thought of her our bosom sting? 

LIV 

It is enough to feel that thou and I 
Are on this earth, to work, and serve, and die, 
As have the millions who have gone before, 
And as will other millions by and by. 

LV 

And when thy voice is mute, thy strivings o'er, 
By no deft magic can report add more; 
Nor can subtraction be should Fame refuse 
To jewel thee with baubles from her store. 

LVI 

Fame's nought, while every deed that man has done 
Vibrating from its source has onward run. 
To mingle with its kind and ever beat 
For good or ill beneath the quickening sun. 

LVII 

And as for thee in time long past was stored 
The force which in thy grate full oft has roared, 
So for thy soul has grown from age to age 
The spirit's energy in heaping hoard. 

[14] 



LVIII 

Things, forces, change and change, but never die; 
Infinitude is writ on earth and sky; 
And if it be no atom lives in vain. 
How can thy spirit ever clod-like lie? 

LIX 

This lily-bloom, we would not wish to stir 
From where it gazes on the towering fir, 
Is rooted in the mountain's mighty past, 
And is because long-vanished oceans were. 

LX 

Let not Necessity's most cunning wit 

Lead thee into Materialism's pit; 

No wind-blown waif art thou, and in thy soul 

Conscience and all her court unsleeping sit. 

LXI 

And shouldst thou Right's most petty creature slay. 
Not all the worlds nor powers could put away 
The sure, commensurate penalty from thee; 
It may be soon or late, but thou must pay. 

LXII 

Thou art thine own redeemer, thou alone; 
Not even the greatest can for thee atone; 
Nor can one bloom expand within thy soul 
Except from seed thy careful hand has sown. 

[15] 



LXIII 
Wert thou not forced to pay thy sin's full cost, 
On Chaos' waves the universe were tossed, 
The Good and Evil be no more opposed, 
And black oblivion settle o'er the lost. 

LXIV 
Man is not nourished on ambrosial food; 
'Tis his to work, and serve, and not to brood; 
And if the knife of suffering cut his heart, 
The wound, it must be, carries with it good. 

LXV 

Though all the blossoms of thy heart be gone, 
Though from thy bosom's bitter wells be drawn 
But tears that hold thy consecrated dead, 
With freshened courage thou must still go on. 

LXVI 
And see thou waste not of thy needed brain 
On any puzzlement of Evil's reign; 
All mystery's kin we breathe with every breath. 
And joy is no less wonderful than pain. 

LXVII 
In life's own heart, inseparable still. 
Roll on, in vasty orbit, Good and 111; 
Without the one who can the other know. 
Or feel was his the treasure of a will? 

[16] 



LXVIII 

Then on the promise-hearted things that lie 
All round thee seize, nor question whence or why, 
Content to know that from the seeming maze, 
Divinely-ordered, thou canst never fly. 

LXIX 

And shouldst thou falter not thy keel may sweep 
Serenity's unbounded, stormless deep. 
Where mid its myriad Islands of the Blest 
Thou mayst communion with the noblest keep. 

LXX 

Duty will seem no ruthless tyrant there. 
With Faith and Love, triumphant o'er despair, 
To guide all heartening breezes to thy sail. 
As Hope's enthralling music fills the air 

LXXI 

But lo! the day is done; entrancing night 
With tremulous hush begins her noiseless flight, 
While we in wonderment still ever new 
Seem dowered afresh by her transfiguring light. 

LXXII 

And as we silent down the mountain go, 
What spirit-streams around our footsteps flow! 
What soothing ecstasies of peace proclaim 
That God is with us 'tis enough to know! 

[17] 



FANCY'S CHILDREN 



FANCY'S CHILDREN 

Where do Fancy's children nest, 
Breeding thoughts we love the best?- 
In the leaves with freshness gay 
When the Spring is on her way, 
Sweetly breathing balm and song 
As she lightly skips along; 
In the heart of daffodils 
Beating as some fairy wills; 
Honeysuckle giving sweets 
To the trellis it entreats; 
Poppies that for sunbeams hold 
Most appealing cups of gold; 
Pansies whose irradiant eyes 
Watch the jasmine's envied vine 
Near the maiden's casement twine; 
Dandelion's stars that glow 
In the meadow's emerald skies; 
Lilacs of the long ago, 
Tremulous with memory's sighs; 
Roses grand in gorgeous show, 
Marguerites that lovers know. 
And in every kindred one 
Drinking joys of dew and sun; 
Sooth, in least that decks the ground 
Fancy's children may be found. 

In the merry-hearted stream 

[21] 



Where some naiads rest in dream, 
While the crystal waters make 
Lulling music lest they wake; 
In the peaceful pools that lie 
Where the umbrage veils the sky, 
And no voice on us may call 
Save the beat of waterfall; 
And in nook of secret dell 
Where an oread from her cell 
Deeply hid is wont to spy 
Lovers' raptures throbbing nigh; 
Here with all that's beauteous crowned 
Fancy's children may be found. 

In the verdure-spreading tree, 
'Neath whose bark dear Dryope 
Hopes that she may yet be free, 
Whose sequestered, cooling shade 
Only dreams and we invade; 
And in cloud of snowy fleece 
Floating swanlike overhead 
On its azure sea of peace. 
By the zephyrs gently sped; 
While the hours with muffled wing 
Pass unknown to any sense. 
And each soul-disturbing thing 
Vanishes in impotence; 
Here by Revery gently bound 
Fancy's children may be found. 

[22] 



In the horses of the surge 

Rearing high upon its verge, 

So to leap upon the shore 

With impetuous, deafening roar. 

While from out their mouths the spume 

Seethes and hisses as it flies; 

In the ships that faintly loom 

Under rainbow-tinted skies. 

Sailing safe on sapphire seas 

To the golden port of Ease, 

There unlading costly bales 

For the hope that never fails; 

In the chambers of the deep 

Where unnumbered thousands keep 

Eyeless gaze on goals unwon. 

Lighted not by moon or sun; 

And where mermaids in their bowers 

Fill with sport the endless hours. 

Saving when they seek the air. 

Some poor mariner to snare. 

Who with them through love or fright 

Plunges to eternal night; 

In all such enchanted ground 

Fancy's children may be found. 

In the dawn's wide-opening rose 
Which in sudden beauty blows 
On the east's enraptured breast. 
As it beams upon the bed 

[23] 



Where some lady's lovely head, 
Filled with him she loves the best, 
Gently stirs within its nest; 
In the visions flitting by 
When the day is fain to lie, 
Wearied out, in final rest. 
On the bosom of the west; 
In the stars that bless the night 
With magnificence of light, 
As the moon, like any ghost. 
Glides amid their countless host, 
Weaving with her silvery beams 
Love's eternal, magic dreams; 
In this wonder-breathing round 
Fancy's children may be found. 

In the memories floating up 
From the long-evanished time. 
When with joy in every cup 
All the moments rang in chime. 
As with her, death would not spare. 
Hand in hand we silent strayed 
In the perfume-laden air. 
Till a glory round us played, 
And the beauty of her eyes, 
Newly lit with love's surprise. 
Told the story that still lies 
In the heart where, wet with tears. 
It shall grieve through all the years; 

[24] 



Ah, in this all-hallowed ground 
Fancy's children may be found. 

In the Garden of Delight 
Boyhood's feet alone can know, 
Where all wonders fill the sight. 
And all fadeless blossoms grow; 
Sooth, where fairies love to be 
Fancy's children you may see; 
But the maiden's guileless breast 
Is by them beloved the best, 
Where to every rapturing sound 
Are they alway to be found. 



IMAGINATION 

How insignificantly small we seem; 

Yet marvellous times there are. 
When every sense in sublimated dream 

Wings on from star to star; — 
Ah, then all principalities are ours. 
And we, immortals with Herculean powers. 



[25] 



SAN FRANCISCO 



SAN FRANCISCO — I 

Dawn scarce had lit the torch of smiling day 
When quaked the earth as with convulsive fear 
And palsying horror, till, both far and near, 
Death's trumpets blared where ruin's wreckage 
lay. 

Then Fire demoniac raged along its way 

On flame-wreathed pinions, hurtling spear on 

spear 
Of direful doom, while still the strangely drear. 
Calm sun shone on with blood-encrimsoned ray. 

And Devastation through the waste did stride 
With glut so sated, that it truly seemed 
His cup of joy could hold not one drop more. 

But in her fine magnificence of pride 

St. Francis' child blenched not, but greatly 

dreamed 
Of nobler, grander glories than before. 



[29] 



SAN FRANCISCO — II 

What glories have been hers, this radiant Queen 
Of great Balboa's far-outstretching sea, 
Where, throned amid adoring subjects, she 
Superbly looked impregnably serene. 

Her jovial ones mayhap too oft were seen 
The slaves of pleasure's witcheries to be, 
For life in its variety was free 
As the ocean winds that sweep her fair demesne. 

Yet cornucopias emptied at her feet; 
Music made glad her ever-listening ear. 
While Art for her the loveliest things unfurled; 

Hers, many a memory of enchantment sweet, 
And hers the song of Poets ringing clear 
Amid the sordid tumult of the world. 



[30] 



SAN FRANCISCO — III 

O the dread tremor of that awful morn 
Which shook the deep foundations of her throne, 
And lit the flames that made her stoutest own 
She might be left irreparably lorn! 

Ah, then all horrors seemed for her new born 
From Fire's vast womb: stone fell on heaping 

stone, 
Till even her once-thronged highways were 

unknown 
Except to Havoc for his mock and scorn. 

But with a voice that reached Hope's farthest sky 
She bade her eager ones regenerate 
The erstwhile splendors of each wreck-strewn 
scene. 

Obedient they with resolution high, 
And though not now " indifferent of fate," 
Once more she reigns impregnably serene. 



[31] 



SAN FRANCISCO — IV 

About her feet the ashes still are spread 
Where homeless walls in piteous ruin lie, 
And lonely winds all melancholy sigh 
Where wit upon the wings of laughter sped; 

Her splendors that in fiery tumult fled 

Still din her ear with their importunate cry, 
Still clouds obscure the lustre of her sky. 
Still Devastation gloats upon her dead. 

Yet sits she firm upon her rock-based throne, 
The heart of every courage in her breast, 
And beaming on her Hope's inviolate flame. 

She dares the loftiest things of earth to own. 
And with invincible, abounding zest 
To add immortal glories to her name. 



[32] 



SAN FRANCISCO — V 

What matters that her multitudinous store — 
The garnered fruit of measureless desire — 
Sank in the maelstrom of abysmal fire, 
To be of man beheld on earth no more? 

Her loyal children, cheery to the core, 

Quailed not, nor blenched, while she, above the 

ire 
Of elemental ragings, dared aspire 
On Victory's wings resplendently to soar. 

What matters all the losses of the years. 
Since she can count the subjects as her own 
That share her fortunes under every fate; 

Who weave their brightest tissues from her tears. 
And who, although her best be overthrown. 
Resolve to make her and to keep her great. 



[33] 



SAN FRANCISCO — VI 

Queen regnant she, and so shall be for aye 
As long as her still unpolluted sea 
Shall wash the borders of her brave and free, 
And mother her incomparable Bay. 

The Pharisees and falsehood-mongers may 
Be rashly blatant, as they care to be, 
She yet with dauntless, old-time liberty 
Will hold her own indomitable way. 

O Royal One, all love the heart can bear. 

The all of strength that human arm can wield, 
Are thine devotedly, and ever thine; 

And thou wilt use them till thy brow shall wear 
A newer crown by high endeavor sealed 
With gems emitting brilliances divine. 



[34] 



MEMORIES 



VISIONS 

Hope drew me on to peaks that glittered bright 
With lovelier tints than rainbows ever knew, 
While round my loitering feet rare blossoms 

grew, 
Steeped in immaculate, unfading light. 

In golden opulence the days were dight, 

With every sky cloud-free, save when there flew 
Great flocks of dreams that veiled the pulsing 

blue, 
Only to thrill me with a new delight. 

Ah, this was in the time so long ago, 
I marvel much if it be truly so — 
Those memory-teeming, passion-hearted years. 

My life's once blazing fires are burning low, 
And in my cheek regret's unfathomed tears 
Have worn the channels age alone can know. 



i 



[37] 



THE DAYS OF OLD 

Here let me put my daily burden by, 
To live again one consecrated hour, 
While sceptred Memory with increasing power 
Commands obedient pageant for mine eye: 

Ah, what procession floats beneath my sky, 
Of long-evanished joys in spring-time flower. 
When boundless realms were youth's demanded 

dower. 
And all its troubles but a tear or sigh. 

And she the fairest of the ghostly throng, 
Who so entreats me with celestial gaze, 
Leaps in my heart and trembles in my song. 

O purple-gloried, haunting, hallowed days, 
When she and I walked Love's enrapturing 

ways — 
She that in Death's cold arms has lain so long! 



[38] 



IN TIME OF MAY 

Within thy silvern bars, oh, hold me fast, 
My Sonnet; — hold me safely, that my dream 
Of long-departed blooms on men may beam 
In all thy artistry of splendor cast. 

To heart-enchanting music of the Past 
Again I loiter by the woodland stream. 
Till on its memory-haunted banks I deem 
Myself with joys in fairy legion massed. 

Once more I seek the wide-embracing shade 
To lie outstretched in boundless freedom there, 
As all the ravishments of May are mine; 

Once more with her that in the grave was laid 
Long, long ago, I breathe the fragrant air, 
And pluck at her fond wish the columbine. 



[39] 



A SUMMER DAY 

What treasure trove the task-free summer hours 
With every golden moment all our own; 
Beneath some tree's soft shade to drowse, and 

drone, 
And build in Dreamland hope-enchanted towers! 

The birds are dozing in their foliaged bowers 
Save the woodpecker tapping far and lone. 
While dauntless bumble-bees make murmurous 

moan 
Among the blossoms of the drooping flowers. 

The sun sinks down in clouds that seem his pyre; 
And as the dusk is edging into dark, 
And Hesperus faintly trembles into fire. 

The lightning bug floats by — a twinkling spark, 
While then we hear — ah, now I hear it still — 
The plaintive calling of the whippoorwill. 



[40] 



IN TIME OF AUTUMN 

I do remember in the Long Ago 

How flamed the maple 'gainst the clouded sky, 
While oak and hickory as with human sigh 
Saw all the ground their dying leaves bestrow. 

Ah, then the pulse of things beat sad and low, 
And silently the shrivelled brook passed by 
Where wakening Winter seemed so very nigh, 
We faintly heard his boreal trumpet blow. 

But then what joy rapaciously to loot 

The pawpaw's and persimmon's luscious fruit. 
That ripening frost had lovingly passed o'er, 

As walnuts from their mother trees fell down. 
On many an eve the jocund feast to crown. 
With jennetings all mellow to the core. 



[41] 



A WINTER DAY 

The great Missouri, that when Spring was young 
Rolled by in still increasing, fearsome flow. 
Now shrinks beneath the ice where skaters go 
Swifter than arrow by an Indian sprung; 

And all the branches of the trees are hung 
With crystals sparkling in the sunshine's glow. 
While on the carpet of the fresh-laid snow 
Play's riot vaults the shouting youths among. 

Then down the hills the reckless coasters fly, 
The air is thick with balls, and wrestlers try 
For victory's palm contending breast to breast. 

O marvellous time, when as stern Winter stormed, 
He boyhood's bosom with his ices warmed, 
And Hope's great bow in newer colors dressed. 



[42] 



THE DREAMS OF LONG AGO 

These dreams of mine refuse to let me go, 
And hold me fast with such entreating face, 
With such insistent fondness of embrace, 
That once again I range the Long Ago; 

Nor at this moment would I care to know 
The Present's most rememberable grace; 
My feet are bounding in the woodland race. 
And everywhere Hope's ringing trumpets blow. 

The unbounded forest and its streams are ours. 
Its luscious fruits and nuts, its beauteous flowers. 
With trees that lift their splendors to the sky; 

While rare, melodious birds such strains prolong 
That all the universe is filled with song. 
And nought that breathes seems ever born to die. 



[43] 



SYMPHONY 

O time of bursting buds, 
Of life in verdurous floods; 
Of sun-swept, azure skies. 
Beneath which raptured flies 
Full many a mating bird. 
His heart with music stirred; 
Of grasses lush and sweet 
Where myriad blossoms meet; 
Of Promise that indwells 
In every seed that swells ! — 
Ah, Spring, so much we love thee, 
There is not one above thee. 

O time when o'er the fields 
The Sun his sceptre wields, 
Till Harvest fills the days 
With thankfulness and praise; 
When skies, and woods, and streams, 
Seem drowsed in airy dreams; 
When in the languorous eves 
The moonlight's magic weaves 
The web of Love's deep art 
Around the maiden's heart! — 
Summer, so much we love thee, 
There is not one above thee. 

O time when on the land 

[45] 



Fruition lays its hand, 
Till fruits and grains are stored 
In hoard on heaping hoard; 
When all the woods and skies 
Are steeped in gorgeous dyes; 
When murmuring breezes sigh 
Mid leaves now fain to die, 
While every air is holy 
With pensive melancholy! — 
Autumn, so much we love thee. 
There is not one above thee. 

O time of leafless trees. 

Of storm-swept lands and seas; 

Whose elemental pains 

Of ice, and blasts, and rains. 

Give birth to sweet desires 

Before the household fires, 

And bid all lives to be 

When Spring shall set them free. 

Again their race to run 

Beneath the kindling Sun! — 

Winter, so much we love thee. 

There is not one above thee. 



[46] 



IN JEFFERSON SQUARE, SAN FRANCISCO 

Beneath the maple's wide-spread canopy 
In Spring's fresh garb miraculously dight, 
I restful sit and muse as morning's light 
Gives every leaf balm-breathing ecstasy. 

Hope-hearted children with unbridled glee 
Throng the embowered arcades, while some poor 

wight, 
Seamed with the scars of life's despairing fight, 
Crawls here alone to nurse his misery. 

The waves of traffic, though they roll near by. 
Are far remote from me compared to these 
Intrepid sparrows that around me play; 

And now with them, and with this radiant sky. 
As fragrant breezes stir the whispering trees, 
I pause and dream all carking cares away. 



[47] 



AT THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO 

The rose and honeysuckle intertwine 

Their fond arms here in beauty's own sweet way; 

Here loveliest grasses never know decay, 

And every wall is eloquent with vine; 
Far-reaching avenues make beckoning sign, 

Where, as we stroll in lingering, glad delay. 

The trilling songster glorifies the sway 

That gives to him inviolable shrine. 
And yet, within this beauty-haunted place 

War keeps his dreadful engines at command, 

With frowning brow and unrelaxing hand; 
And as we saunter on in pensive pace. 

We start to see, mid these so lovely bowers, 

A tiger sleeping on a bed of flowers. 



[48] 



IN UNION SQUARE, SAN FRANCISCO 

With look bespeaking golden prophecy 
For that dear city she has made her own, 
Superbly poises on her columned stone 
Our loved, renowned Lady of Victory. 

One hand holds high the trident of the sea, 
And one the wreath for him by fame far blown. 
While round her shaft wide spreads a verdurous 

zone 
Where Peace reclines in full serenity. 

Yet here Misfortune's children in defeat 
Despairing drone the jewelled hours away, 
And hopeless mourn the unreturning years. 

How wretched those whose weary, trammelled feet 
Can never reach achievement's crowning day 
When every air throbs deep with Victory's cheers. 



[49] 



BEAUTY 

AFTER FERNAND GREGH 

This eve dream brims my heart, my tears 

unbidden rise, 
Eachwhere I feel another infinite soul to be, 
My silence fills the air with tremulous harmony. 
And flowers irradiant bloom at will of my closed 

eyes. 

My youth-compelling blood stirs with its ardent 

cries 
The old, far world whose kindred spirit speaks 

to me, 
And in the kindly dark immingling forms I see 
In motion's endless play and color's myriad dyes. 

O moment thou of Beauty! Could I nothing know 
Save this thy swift-winged rapture in my clouded 

way, 
'Twere well to have been born, to death content 

rd go. 

This eve my pride fed full on what man dreams 

for aye; 
And, like a bird one catches at the casement, so 
The infinite in my hand all palpitating lay. 



[50] 



AN ARIZONA CACTUS 

The burning sun has scorched the rainless ground, 
Where the volcano's progeny still lie; 
And yet beneath an unrelenting sky 
What creatures born to beauty may be found! 

Just now we caught a bird's melodious sound 
In unison blending with the pine's low sigh, 
The while a daisy's all unenvious eye 
Watched a near juniper with glory crowned. 

But chief of all, behold yon crimson flame 

The sun has kindled on the stone's gray breast 
Within the Cactus's exulting heart 

Beside thy light all others seem but tame; — 
Thou desert-torch, thou beauty's topmost crest. 
No voice could sing how wonderful thou art. 



[51] 



UNDER A PINE AT THE GRAND CANYON 

Beneath a friendly, towering pine we lay, — 
Its sun-smit needles dancing in their bright, 
Gem-glittering sheen, — and breathed the deep 

delight 
That streamed ecstatic through the veins of day. 

Below, the awesome canyon's vast array 
Swam silent in its sea of azure light. 
While far beyond, within our wondering sight, 
The desert stretched inimitably gray. 

Above us screamed a rapture-hearted jay; 

And while the breeze swept music to our ears, 
Whose murmurs deepened all the joys of rest, 

Dream's noiseless pinions wafted us away. 
Beyond the toils and tumults of the years. 
To purple-glowing Islands of the Blest. 



[52] 



TO THE GRAND CANYON 

Upon thy lofty rim we breathless stand, 
As thy stupendous, myriad structures glow 
With color's opulence, while far below 
The raging river seems a slender band. 

Thou deemst thou art eternal, yet thy grand. 
Unrivalled palaces will surely go 
In wreck adown the ages as they flow. 
While other beauties will their place command. 

Time is for man alone, and not for Him 
Who bade the light forevermore to be. 
And thee in all its amethyst to swim. 

The Lord that fashioned us has fashioned thee, 
And as we put our puny hands in thine. 
We thrill to feel that we are both divine. 



[53] 



IN THE PETRIFIED FOREST, ARIZONA 

All round us here, in myriad number strown, 
The monstrous trunks, great chips and splinters 

lie. 
Of great-armed trees that once besought the sky, 
Changed to bright jewels of enduring stone. 

What eons on slow-pacing wings have flown 
Since first their verdure caught the sun's fond 

eye, 
And since transfiguring nature bade them die, 
To rise resplendent in this desert lone. 

What glorious death was theirs, if death it be: — 
To live in newer loveliness, and light 
The solitude with love-enkindling ray; 

The toad's and lizard's beauty they may see, 
With many a bloom's, behold the eagle's flight, 
And on all hearts the hand of wonder lay. 



[54] 



A LIZARD OF THE PETRIFIED FOREST 

Upon an age-worn, upright stone 

Of gems that once had been a part 

Of some great tree's rejoicing heart 

A Lizard, motionless and lone, 

A glowing, living emerald shone 

Of such encrusted, radiant sheen. 

He reigned the monarch of the scene* — 

A creature nature's hand had done 

When wrought the earth, and air, and sun. 

In most harmonious unison. 

He viewed us, as we passed him by. 

With calm and yet with questioning eye. 

But moveless still, as though the stone 

Were portion of his being's own. 

And voiceless as the forest is. 

Whose jewelled ruins all are his. 

The desert seemed to hold him there 

As one of her supremest fair. 

As one to whom our souls should owe 

The best that beauty's love can know. 

And with her prideful voice to say, 

"See how I gem my breast of gray!" 



[55] 



THE SAWMILL 

The demon Sawmill cried, I lack for food 

Wherewith to cram this craving maw of mine, 

That spite of nature and of law divine 

Would gorge on all that's grandest in the wood. 

Then they who madly serve the monster's good 
Mid jocund laughter slew a towering pine, 
As bright-eyed, cheery morn with flaming sign 
Awoke to life the slumbering solitude. 

For immemorial years this fallen one 
Had been so loved by earth, and air, and sun, 
He seemed with beauty for the ages clad; 

And as his massive trunk and members lie 
Dissevered and a wreck, we marvel why 
The demon and its slaves can still be glad. 



[56] 



TO BEAUTY 

What joy to watch thee as thy wings with zest 
Bear tremulous Dawn along the gladsome height, 
Or when with languid beat they shed their light 
Of paling crimson on the saddened West; 

To see thee flitting, as a seraph blest. 

Through dale and wood the meanest to bedight, 
O'er pools deep-bosomed brooding, and with 

Night 
Lying mid splendors of her vasty breast! 

The canvas throbs beneath thy deathless art. 
While at thy word the Sculptor newly wakes 
To sudden life the eon-slumbering stone; 

And when thou leadest to the Poet's heart 
Thy flock of airy dreams, he raptured makes 
The song all ages cherish as their own. 



[57] 



MUSIC 

The murmurous monotone of waving grain 

When winds are gently winging down the vale; 
The storm-voiced billows drowning men bewail; 
The pattering stroke of softly falling rain; 

The sighing leaves that bend to every tale 
The breezes tell; the songster's lilting strain, 
From feeblest note of all the joyful train 
To rapturous burst of peerless nightingale; — 

What are all these, and all that human ear 
In sweetest concord from their kin can hear. 
But hints of deeper rhythms as yet unheard; 

That in the soul ineffable of things 

An ordered Music, by the eternal word. 
Throughout the vast of space divinely sings. 



[58] 



THE SHEPHERDESS 

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE PAINTED BY 
WILLIAM KEITH 



How lightly fall the footsteps of the Day 
In nearing now the chambers of the west, 
As loth the woodland spirit to molest, 
That broods in quietude the hours away. 

And what of her on whom the shadows play? 
Is hopeless love her bosom's fearsome guest. 
Or tends she here the sheep, all unoppressed 
By weight of thought, and free of care as they? 

It matters not: she takes her radiant part 

With sky, and tree, and pool, in this fair scene 
Where Beauty gives her brood still newer sheen - 

Beauty, the sovran sorceress of the heart. 
That garbs no less the tiniest blade of green 
Than grandest structure of the poet's art. 



[59] 



THE RETURN FROM THE RAID 

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE PAINTED BY 
WILLIAM KEITH 



With rapine glutted he returns once more, 
Trailed by his vulturine, marauding crew; 
But not the roisterous wassail to renew, 
Nor on some foe to lock the dungeon door; 

For lo, there loom, his blasted sight before, 
Consuming flames that all the sky imbue. 
To light his castle's ruins as they strew 
The scene that devastation revels o'er. 

When this bold knight rode forth to rob and slay, 
He sweetly sang a merry roundelay, 
Nor thought of her his baseness had betrayed; 

And now we fancy seated on a stone, 

Downfallen from its prideful tower, the lone, 
Distracted figure of a hapless maid. 



[60] 



THE UNFINISHED PORTRAIT 

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE PAINTED BY 
WILLIAM KEITH 



I cannot strike the color for this eye, 
Nor bend the arch above it; — ah, to-day 
My brush's cunning, do the best I may. 
In heartless mockery seems to pass me by. 

Thus spake the Master as he stood anigh 
His easel, where a young man's portrait lay 
So near to perfectness it seemed to say, 
Give me not up ere once again you try. 

Then with a fury such as genius knows. 

He spread his pigments all that portrait o'er 
Until a landscape shone divinely there; 

And in the glories of its great repose 
Imagination feels, as ne'er before, 
Some hidden spirit breathe through all its air. 



[61] 



WILLIAM KEITH 

All bottomless his well of Beauty seems: 

For years his golden buckets have been drawn 
From out its depths, yet on, and yet still on, 
They rise full-brimmed with jewels of his 
dreams — 

Jewels whose infinitely-colored beams 
Reveal each way that Nature's feet have gone 
In blossoming joy from dawn to dewy dawn. 
Through skies and mountains, meadows, woods 
and streams. 

Ah, could the creatures he has painted stir 

With languaged voice, what paeans would they 

raise 
To their deep-loving, great interpreter. 

How feeble then would seem man's loudest praise 
For him who keeps bright youth within his heart, 
To newly lustre his unaging art. 



[62] 



TO THE SONNET 

Bound in the fetters of thy narrow frame 

What souls have conquered song! — Here Dante's 

woe, 
As Petrarch's, swells to joy; here Angelo 
Greatens the glory of his mighty name; 
'Tis here that Shakespeare bears his breast to 
blame, 
And here that Milton stoops, grand strains to 

blow; 
Here Wordsworth's notes with calm, deep music 

flow, 
While Keats before thee lights a quenchless 
flame. 
Yea, all the rhymesters of our modern day 
Importunately beg thee to entwine 
Their brows with leaves of thy unwithering bay. 
Mayhap thy favors never can be mine; 

But though thou cast me from thy sight away, 
Still from afar my worship shall be thine. 



[63] 



POETIC ART 

The cities vanish; one by one 

The glories fade that paled the sun; 

At Time's continuous, fateful call 

The palaces and temples fall; 

While heroes do their deeds and then 

Sink down to earth as other men. 

Yet, let the Poet's mind and heart 

But touch them with the wand of Art, 

And lo! they rise and shine once more 

In greater splendor than before. 



INSIGHT 

One doubts, one fears, one calls on circumstance, 
And one is blown by every wind of chance; 
While yet another looks into his soul. 
And sails serenely to his destined goal. 



[64] 



THE HOMERIC COMBAT 

AFTER LECONTE DE LISLE 

The same as in the sun when swarms of monstrous 
flies 

The hides of slaughtered bulls innumerous cover 
o'er, 

Beyond their ships the men, with hair long- 
streaming, pour 

In whirlwind wrath and clamor raging to the skies. 

All mix in tumult dire: mouths hoarse with 

desperate cries. 
Loud din of blows, the live, and they that breathe 

no more, 
Stallions uprearing wild, void chariots sprent with 

gore. 
And levin-flashing shields in thunderous fall and rise. 

With burning gaze, and head with writhing reptiles 

crowned, 
The yelping Gorgon grinds her teeth as sweeps she 

round 
The awful plain where blood exhales unceasing reek. 

Zeus, furious, rises then upon his golden pave, 
And all the mighty Gods, heroically brave. 
Into the combat plunge from the cloud's topmost 
peak. 

[65] 



FROM A WINNOWER OF GRAIN 
TO THE WINDS 

AFTER JOACHIM DU BELLAY 

Nimble troop, to you 
That on light pinion through 
The world forever pass, 
And with a murmuring sweet 
Where shade and verdure meet 
Toss gently leaf and grass, 

I give these violets, 

Lilies and flowerets. 

And roses here that blow. 

All these red-blushing roses 

Whose freshness now uncloses. 

And these rich pinks also. 

With your soft breath now deign 
To fan the spreading plain, 
And fan, too, this retreat. 
Whilst I with toil and strain 
Winnow my golden grain 
In the day's scorching heat. 



[66] 



IN NOVEMBER 

The year draws nigh the edge of death; for see, 
These dreary branches have already shed 
Such myriad leaves, they lie in mounds of dead 
At foot of each sad-hearted parent tree. 

Yet, grim and stern as human soul might be. 
The scarred, gray sycamores with defiant head 
Like warriors stand, while in its shrunken bed 
The languid stream flows on resignedly. 

Life is aweary and in quiet here 

Would rest awhile her care-tormented brain, 
As dreams she of the fast-departing year; 

While Melancholy, led by Memory's train, 
With pensive step now gently steals anear. 
To dew the ground with sacramental tear. 



[67] 



MY BOHEMIA— A FANTASY 

AFTER ARTHUR RIMBAUD 

With fists in tattered pockets forth I strayed, — 
My great-coat, too, not far from raggery, — 
Beneath the skies, O Muse, all true to thee; 
And there what radiant love-dreams round me 

played! 
My only breeches gaped with holes as I, 
Poor, little dreamer, many a rhyme dropped where 
My footsteps fared; mine inn the heaven's Great 

Bear, 
*Neath stars whose soft, sweet rustlings filled the 

sky. 

I heard them as I sat by roadsides when 
September's eves were steeped in balm; and then, 
As with strong wine, my face was wet with dew; 
And rh5miing mid strange glooms a lyre I made 
Of my torn shoes' elastics, worn and frayed, 
As near my heart my wearied foot I drew. 



George Moore, in his "Impressions and Opinions," states that Rimbaud 
wrote the sonnet the version of which from the French is here given, 
when he was fifteen years of age, and that its first publication was in 
the book with title as above. 

[68] 



SHAKESPEARE'S SEVENTY-THIRD SONNET 

AS RENDERED FROM CHARLES-MARIE GARNIER'S FRENCH 
VERSION OF THAT SONNET 

In me thou seest Autumn, saddest time of all, 
When sallowing leaves no longer to their branches 

cling, 
When shaken by the blast, down from the arches fall 
The ruined choirs where once the birds did sweetly 

sing. 

In me thou seest, too, the gloaming's paling light. 
Which, when the sun has fled, delays along the west, 
Till step by step 'tis lost within the fold of night — 
Death's sister sealing all in vast, reposeful rest. 

In me thou also seest the flame of flickering breath, 
Which on a burned-out fire dies down in ashes cold — 
The cradle of its beam, its spirit's bed of death. 
Consumed by that same heat which nourished it of 
old. 

That thou dost harbor this, how great thy love 

must be 
For that which shall be soon forever lost to thee. 

The French versions of Monsieur Charles-Msirie Garnier of Shakes- 
peare's sonnets (he has so far turned about half of them into French), 
being worthy of note, it occurred to the author of this volume to try 
the experiment of turning back into English one of these sonnets, using 
for that purpose the French poet's Alexandrines, and making the version 
without reference to the original. The result proved to be not altogether 
uninteresting. 

[69] 



THE EAGLES 

On a lone crag, where Storm's wild children nest 
Mid glacier's ice and vast, unmelting snows, 
The lordly Eagle stands, while Morning throws 
Her spears of golden light against his breast. 

Deep stirs within him an unwonted zest. 
And as the verdurous vale's serene repose 
Alluring spreads, in scorn of waiting foes 
He downward sweeps in majesty confessed. 

But scarce his wings were folded from their flight, 
When man's disloyal rifle smote the air. 
And limp he fell in death's unending night; — 

And when the hours had drearily dragged on, 
His mate, in desolation's dumb despair. 
Gazed at the vale rewakening to the dawn. 



[70] 



THE COCK 

Adown his neck, upcurving high, 
His plumes in golden radiance flowed. 
With gleaming bronze his body glowed, 
While all his tail of sable dye 
Waved banner-like as proud he strode. 

His comb in scarlet glory shone 

Above an eye of stern delight. 

And bits of rainbow tinted bright 

His breast, as with resounding tone 

His clarion shook the neighboring height. 

For all the filth that reeked around 
The purlieu's street he had no care; 
He glorified its earth and air, 
And with a flawless beauty crowned 
Strode on in lonely splendor there. 



[71] 



BOAT SONG 

Where the river murmurs music 
To the purple-wreathed hours, 
While the leaning, lovely willow 
On the wave its beauty showers; 
Where the stately, towering redwoods 
Mighty lords of nature seem. 
Float we gently in the twilight, 
Float we gently as in dream. 

Though the saucy rocks would bar us, 
Onward, onward still we glide, 
Till the placid pools receive us. 
Reaching far, and deep, and wide; 
Resting then upon the bosom 
Of the music-murmuring stream, 
Float we gently in the twilight. 
Float we gently as in dream. 



[72] 



MOTHER'S LOVE 

As through the sweets of verse our talk did run, 
My friend said, "Cage me in thy sonnet, pray, 
A thought whose song shall tempt the Muse to 

say. 
Ah, this, indeed, is an immortal one!" 

"Is it," I asked, "a maid's fond heart undone? 
Or some far lesser grief? Or does the way 
To fairest memories open to thee?" — "Nay, 
'Tis Mother's Love — flame-hearted as the sun." — 

"Thou seekest what thou knowest is in vain, 
Although before me were a Dante's pen. 
Heart's blood for ink, with strength to make 
them mine. 

And though my sonnet bars their bounds should 
strain 
Beyond imagination's farthest ken 
Till bathed in all the ecstasies divine." 



[73] 



MY SECRET 

AFTER FELIX ARVERS 

My soul its secret has, my life its mystery: 
'Tis an eternal love an instant saw conceived. 
My pain's beyond all hope, and silent I must be, 
While she, the cause, knows not that I am sore 
bereaved. 

Alas! I shall have passed anear her unperceived. 
Still by her side and yet a lonely one to see. 
And shall have served on earth to life's extreme 

degree, 
Not daring aught to ask, and having nought 

received. 

Though God has made her sweet and infinitely 

dear, 
With heedless mind she'll go her way, and never 

hear 
The whispering tones of love that all her steps 

attend. 

Beneath the pious yoke of duty's rigid sway. 
When she reads o'er this verse all full of her, she'll 

say, 
"This woman, who is she?" and will not 

comprehend. 



[74] 



THE LADY'S ANSWER 

AFTER LOUIS AIGOIN 

My friend, wherefore aver, with so much mystery, 
That the eternal love within your breast conceived 
Is pain beyond all hope, a secret that must be; 
And why suppose that she may know not you're 
bereaved? 

Ah no, you did not pass anear her unperceived. 
Nor should you deem yourself a lonely one to see; 
The best beloved may serve to life's extreme degree. 
Not daring aught to ask, and having nought received. 

The good God gives to us a knowing heart and 

dear. 
And on our way we find that it is sweet to hear 
The whispering tones of love that all our steps 

attend. 

She who would meekly bow to duty's rigid sway, 
Reading your verse of her, felt more than she can 

say: 
For though she spake no word, . . . she well did 

comprehend. 



[75] 



SONG 

Dear love, around me fold thine arms, 
And lay thy cheek against mine own. 
Where nested safe from all alarms, 
My heart shall be thy firm-set throne. 

Reign there beloved, reign alone. 
With sceptre fashioned of thy charms. 
Till winged by death we shall have flown 
Beyond the reach of passion's harms. 



THE ROSE 

Thou lovely Rose, I cannot now but sigh, 
To see thy petals thus dismembered lie ... , 
Lament not me: She wore me in her hair — 
Ah, then I lived unnumbered hours there. 



[76] 



IN THE CONVENT GARDEN 

LAST SCENE OF CYRANO DE BERGERAC 

Steeped in autumnal dyes the mournful leaves 
With sad insistence flutter to the ground, 
And blend their voices with the vespers' sound, 
To soothe the heart that still for Christian 
grieves. 

Beneath the sighing trees her bosom heaves; 

For memories throng, while he that in her bound 
Brings worldly word comes not — he whom, 

thorn-crowned, 
She still, as ever, blindly misconceives. 

At last all worn he comes with feeble breath, 
In whose sweet tenderness preluding death 
Throbs strangely new a note from love's past 
years : 

It tells that he, not Christian, won her kiss. 
That his, not Christian's, pen had fed her bliss. 
And that Remorse shall fill her cup with tears. 



[77] 



IN MEMORY 

Full oft it was as balmy night 
Wove many a web of dreamy light, 
The moon so touched her budding charms, 
I feared for my enfolding arms. 
That held her close. 

And so, on one forbidding night. 
That knew no moon's caressing light. 
All withered lay her blossomed charms 
In envious death's relentless arms. 
That held her close. 

But oft again in memory's night 
The moon refloods the scene with light. 
And lovelier still, her wakened charms 
Rejoice my fond, enfolding arms. 
That hold her close. 



[78] 



COME NEAR ME WHEN I SLEEP 

AFTER VICTOR HUGO 

Oh, when I sleep, come closely to my couch 

As did fair Laura to Petrarca's side, 

And as I feel thy breathing's balmy touch . . . — 

Sudden my lips 

Will part to thine. 

When on my brow, where then perchance some 

dream 
Of darkness settles which too long would bide. 
Thy lovely eyes look down with starry beam . . .— 
Sudden my dream 
Will brightly shine. 

Then if my lips, whose fluttering flame has learned 

Love's lightning God himself has purified. 

Are kissed by thee — to woman angel turned . . . — 

Sudden will wake 

This soul of mine. 



[79] 



ULYSSES AND CALYPSO 

For that they slew the cattle of the Sun 
Ulysses' comrades sank to death while he, 
Borne on the billows of the friendly sea, 
Calypso's lovely isle in safety won; 

Where filled with soothing rest his days did run 
To murmurous music's luring notes as she 
Bound him in coils of such captivity, 
That but for Zeus his soul had been undone. 

The God's decree the enamored nymph obeyed, 
And helped the hero as his raft he made. 
While brimmed her heart with desolation's tears. 

His glimmering sail she watched till in the sea's 
Great void 'twas lost, then moaned because her 

years 
Were not as mortal as Penelope's. 



[80] 



THESEUS AND ARIADNE 

Within the labyrinth's depths the Minotaur, 
Slain by the sword she gave, lay stark and dead. 
And with his finger following her thread 
He issued forth to see the heavens once more. 

Then Theseus swiftly from the hated shore 
With Ariadne on his bosom fled, 
Still hearing, as toward Naxos on they sped. 
King Minos' cries above the ocean's roar. 

Deep-nested in love's softest down they lay 
When she to him: "Through me alone thy way 
To century-sounding fame has now been won; 

And yet I fear; — Oh, swear we shall not part!" — 
"By Aphrodite do I swear, sweetheart!" . . . 
Then rose portentous cloud and hid the sun. 



[81] 



CLEOPATRA 

AFTER ALBERT SAMAIN 

Upon the tower's battlements, all silent she, 
The Queen, with radiant locks that fillets closely 

bind, 
Allured by perfume's spells full troublous to the 

mind. 
Feels mounting in her heart Love's vast, unresting 

sea. 

Beneath her violet eyes, moveless, to dream 

resigned, 
She sinks into her cushions' softly-sheltering nest. 
While necklaces of gold deep heaving on her breast 
Bespeak her languishment and fevers unconfined. 

The monumental stones day's last rose-tints 

o'erspread ; 
The eve in velvety shade is to enchantment wed; 
While meantime as far distant cry the crocodiles, 

The Queen, with fingers clinched, sobbing her heart 

away. 
Thrills to the bone to feel the artful, prurient wiles 
Of hands that in the wind with all her tresses play. 



[82] 



AN OPERA CLOAK 

Poor, cast-off opera cloak that shows 
Your pride from hidden, long repose, 
I smile to note the scornful eye 
Wherewith my dear now puts you by. 
Though richly wrought with broidered rose. 

But ah, with what delight, who knows. 
She donned you first to list to those 
Rare strains that swelled in triumph high, 
When Patti sang. 

Mad fashion's blight upon you blows, 
The diva's days now tuneless close. 
Yet she that dooms your death and I 
Have bred a love that dares not die. 
Though we have borne heart-rending woes 
Since Patti sang. 



[83] 



DANTE AND BEATRICE 

O world-compelling Dante, who the sea 
Of Poesy so stirred from shore to shore, 
That even as yet its surging thunders roar 
In tones undying as eternity; 

With master spirit so supremely free 

It scorned all bonds and swept through every 

lore, 
On wisdom's pinions at the last to soar 
To empyreal world of ecstasy! 

The crown of sorrows with its thorns was thine; 
But in thy bosom blazed the fires divine 
That lit thy track to Paradise from Hell; 

And she who gendered their supernal light 
Has starred forevermore the magic might — 
Disputeless miracle — of woman's spell. 



[84] 



EDELWEISS 

"To-morrow from Zermatt we'll see the grand, 
Far Theodule and soaring Matterhorn; 
And then, O joy! as if for us just born. 
In luring nook the Edelweiss will stand." . . . 

The morrow's breeze the peak and glacier fanned. 
And fanned the form of her that crushed and 

torn 
Lay like uprooted lily pale and lorn, 
The fatal Edelweiss within her hand. 

Her body fouled with stains they bore far up 
From precipice's foot to church's arms. 
And would have earthed it 'neath memorial 
stone; 

But vain the offer of this final cup: 

For she who fled the city's roars and harms 
Now found that even in death it claimed its own. 



[85] 



TOO LATE 

Who could foretell till she was gone 
How she had filled my heart and soul; 
That though my feet went stoutly on 
Grief's bells for me must ever toll; 
That then her loveliness should seem 
To mock my poor, tear-blinded sight, 
As far beyond all wonder's dream 
In glory shone its new-born light. 

Oh, let me say it still once more. 
That has been said a million times, 
And has been sung in poet-lore 
With multitude of sobbing rhymes; 
That little does the truest know 
The worth of love that's all his own, 
Till swept away on waves of woe 
It leaves him empty and alone. 

Ah, then we feel if it should be 

This precious thing again were ours. 

No patient, holiest devotee 

Would build for it more hallowed bowers. 

Too late! Too late! that dreadful cry 

All helpless rends the freezing air, 

And impotent we fall, to lie 

In wretchedness that tastes despair. 



[86] 



IMPOTENCE 

Oh, could my weak-winged verse soar high, 

To sing of her empurpled days, 

Until it reached the farthest sky, 

'Twould yet fall short of fitting praise: 

Ah, not till now since Poesy 

Her wonders to me first revealed. 

And I to her then dared to be 

In humbleness forever sealed, 

Have I so felt my impotence 

In all the cunning ways of sense; 

In all the depthless wells of fire 

That lie within the Poet's heart. 

Obedient to the vast desire 

Of his incomparable art; 

And in the music on whose wings 

Serenely soar the loveliest things, 

That still through even the mist of tears 

Bear onward with immortal years. 

THE QUEEN 

Man fills not home as does the woman: she 

Reigns there in dominance benignly free; 

Her very presence fills with balm the air; 

Her busy footsteps beat in music there; 

And when she falls, the home falls stark and lone. 

While Emptiness usurps the vacant throne. 

[87] 



WOMAN'S LOVE 

We take for granted, ah, so many things. 
Some fond, unwearied heart on us bestows. 
Nor blinded see the torturing, hidden throes 
When seeming coldness her dear bosom wrings. 

Too oft the man in fatuous folly flings 
Away the treasure he so little knows. 
And flees the all-sufficing, soft repose. 
Where every joy with healing music sings. 

O Woman's Love, what art can measure thee. 
What plummet thy vast ocean depths can sound, 
What divination thy circumference bound? 

If he who has thee in supreme degree 
In thy great service be deficient found. 
He should be scourged through all eternity. 



[88] 



THE POET TO HIS LADY IN DEATH — I 

Petrarch for Laura sighed his heart away 
In verse that bears imperishable bloom; 
So Michelangelo enstarred his gloom 
With sonnets kindled by Vittoria's ray; 

And Dante fed the hours of each long day 

With thought of Beatrice through saddest doom, 
Until the vastness of his soul found room 
Wherein all hells and heavens to survey. 

And as I gaze upon thy death-closed eyes, 
These fame-crowned, radiant ones before me rise, 
With that unreaped, strange love which lit their 
way; 

While looms so large the garnered love of thine, 
That I, — the least of all the poet-line, — 
Dare deem myself more greatly blest than they. 



[89] 



THE POET TO HIS LADY IN DEATH — II 

I seem to hear thy voice's liquid tones 

In tremulous leaves whose modulations low 
Delight the sense, and in the streams that flow 
With softly-sounding ripples o'er the stones; 

For thou art with me ever, and my moans 
Become memorial music, till I know 
That something stirs within my heart of woe 
Which for the loss of thee in part atones. 

O regnant one, that ruled my laboring days 
Till from thy hand thy golden sceptre fell, 
I cannot picture thee in realms afar: 

Thou art anear me as I sing thy praise, 

Thou wilt my soul still more and more compel, 
And be forever my unchanging star. 



[90] 



THE POET TO HIS LADY IN DEATH — III 

When my insatiate heart is full of thee 
As Day slips out on Evening's darksome tide, 
I pray for kindly Sleep to open wide 
His jewelled gates for dreams to flock to me — 

Dreams where thy breathing form again I see, 
Thy smiling face imbued with queenly pride. 
And where, in guard of Love, thy footsteps glide 
Along some lovely asphodelian lea. 

In vain I pray: Sleep does with Death conspire 
To bar mine eyes' unquenchable desire, 
That else would make a glory of the night. 

O my beloved, on this earth once more 

Give me to feast my longing, famished sight 
On that which I forever must adore! 



[91] 



TO GOETHE 

God built thee on the noblest plan, 

Thou universal, fruitful man! 

No life there was thou couldst not feel. 

No learning thou didst not acquire. 

And these thine art did so anneal 

They glow as with perpetual fire: 

The heights of hope, the vales of fears; 

The agony of soul-drawn tears; 

The human heart in every guise; 

The weak, the strong, the fool, the wise; 

Beauty in all its good and ill; 

Temptation's snare, heroic will; 

Poor, erring man as on he goes 

Through hates and loves, delights and woes; 

All these did in thy passion throng. 

To breathe immortally in song. 

Thy serious soul surveyed the all. 
Contemning not what seemed the small, 
Nor lost in mazes of the vast; 
While all thy years thou wisely wast 
The conqueror of thyself, who could 
Dispart the evil from the good. 
And calmly sit above the show 
Of froth and fume that raged below. 
And with unique, compelling force 
Ordain for man his proper course. 

[92] 



Thy piercing vision saw the springs 
That lie within the heart of things, 
And thy imperial voice shall sound 
Its notes to earth's remotest bound, 
To point the way, with good bestrown, 
To Wisdom seated on her throne. 



POPE 

The choicest vintage of ambrosial wine 
He knew not, nor the harmonies divine, 
But who has matched, or who may hope 

to match. 
The wit and sparkle of his rapier line? 



THE POET 

He crushed his heart for wine of song 
The sordid souls of men to glad. 
But by him passed the scoffing throng, 
Nor dreamed he was divinely mad. 



[93] 



TO BALZAC ON READING HIS MEMOIR 
BY MISS WORMELEY 

Until I knew the story of thy years, 
It did not seem titanic power like thine 
Could have been found in merely human mine, 
Or could have mingled with life's hopes and 
fears ; 

For thy great spirit so sublime appears 
Among the kindred fellows of thy line. 
That every Muse would hail thee as divine. 
And Atropos for once distrust her shears. 

'Tis so set down, yet strange I feel it still. 
That thou wast not the demi-god I deemed. 
But anxious toiler for thy daily bread; 

Thy bosom racked with many a torturing ill; 
And who, like others, when thy dreams were 

dreamed. 
Felt Death's dark angel settle on thy head. 



[94] 



BROWNING 

Here was a Titan — one whose teeming thought, 
In unfamiliar channels, broad and deep, 
Flowed grandly on in undiminished sweep; 
One who, by nature as by learning taught. 
In many a mine of human passion wrought. 
With such keen vision, such soul-searching ways, 
As ne'er were blazoned in the sight of men 
Save by his own and Shakespeare's sovran pen; 
One who met truth with never-flinching gaze 
As on he walked with Muse for loving guide; 
Who held his road, despite of blame or praise, 
In noble scorn of intellectual pride, 
And yet who could with any man be free. 
And in his breast some thing of beauty see; 
Who bore Faith's ensign, starred with heartsome 

hopes. 
Undaunted up Doubt's demon-haunted slopes; 
Who kept to earth the while his questing eyes 
Ranged all the reaches of the farthest skies; 
And who, with fame that purples every tide. 
Sleeps, where 'tis meet he should, by Chaucer's side. 



[95] 



OSCAR WILDE 

Say that his bosom nursed black pools of mire, 
Where venomed snakes their lustful poison bred, 
On which in bestial mood he weakly fed 
Until Law smote him with tremendous ire; 

Yet in his soul still flamed celestial fire; 
And Beauty's lovely legions wide outspread 
Her conquering banner there, as raptured sped 
The songs that shook his music-breathing lyre. 

His dungeon's foulness leaves no speck or stain 
Upon the white refulgence of his strain. 
Nor bars its way along the loving years; 

Nor takes the least from his all priceless gain. 
That at the last he calmed his spirit's fears. 
And died embathed in his repentant tears. 



[95] 



AFTER A READING IN LONGFELLOW 

Could I but mount with something of thine ease, 
And lightly wing the empyreal air 
The Muses breathe, I would not now despair 
To rise in praise of thee in lines like these; — 

Now, when thy dulcet, fine felicities 
All freshly lie upon my soul, and wear 
A bloom so richly, beautifully fair, 
They mock expression's subtlest alchemies. 

No deliration ever mars thy strain. 

No puling, weak complaining nor lament. 
Nor formless numbers hobbling slow along; 

But borne on waves of music, sweetly sane, 
Serenely passioned, suavely eloquent. 
It glows with witching art of noble song. 



[97] 



TO MILTON 

Thou star-crowned, peerless Milton, thine to know 
The moans and thunders of the surging seas; 
The tinkling laugh of rippling rills; the trees' 
Soft murmurs multitudinous; and so 

Thy deeply-wrought imaginations flow 

With long-drawn roll of mighty harmonies. 
As with dulcifluous, tripping melodies. 
In Beauty's unextinguishable glow. 

Thou art the starry wonder of thy time — 
The favored child of every lofty lore, 
And in thy soul, as in thy verse, sublime. 

Thou gavest England, when she needed sore 
Her strongest and her best, one man unique 
Who grandly blended Puritan with Greek. 



[98] 



THE BALANCE 

Look not on erring Man as one who teems 
With ills that slay him: his ethereal thought, 
Thrilled by imagination's glorious dreams, 
Rears deathless fanes in gold and purple wrought; 
His science tests and probes all things that are, 
Piles fact on fact, and in its thirst to know 
Dares lay its finger on the farthest star; 
Beneath his hand, its purest wealth to show, 
All forms of beauty exquisitely grow; 
His wand of music bids all raptures rise. 
Tears, and the heart's impassioned, pleading cries. 
While Love's own fount wells joyous in his breast 
With crystal stream to give the wearied rest. 



[99] 



LIFE AND DEATH 

An owl sat on a dead tree's limb, 
Where, as the sunset showered on him 
Its paling gold, we startled saw 
A mangled mouse beneath his claw. 

And then we fell to musing there, 
Till sudden we became aware. 
From Hesper looming into sight. 
That Day was in the grasp of Night. 



IMPRISONED 

My prison house is loneliness. 
Whose jailors are my fears; 
My food is but mine own distress. 
That's moistened with my tears. 
She said, and in her clouded eyes 
I read a tale of miseries. 



[100] 



THE TRUE COURSE 

How gently run the luring days along 
Upon the bosom of seductive ease, 
My boon companions nobly-striving trees, 
And stream soft-throated with unending song. 

The storm-voiced ragings of the mart's great 
throng 
Fall lightlier on my drowsed sense than these 
Plumed grasses' murmurs, nor does any breeze 
Waft to my soul the terrors of a wrong .... 

Up from this bed of sweet delights and be 
Again afloat upon the human sea. 
My brother's heart in beat against mine own; 

Endeavor's rock-bestudded course for me. 
Though driven, mid all the dangers ever known, 
To shores where hopeless ruin reigns alone. 



1 101 ] 



WORK 

To age-worn palace veiled with vine and tree 
I listless came one summer afternoon, 
A self-invited guest who craved the boon 
Of peaceful idlesse in that privacy; 

And there I saw, as swung the doors for me, 
Some of the inmates lounge as half in swoon, 
While others gaped and yawned, tried trivial tune, 
Turned a few leaves, then wandered aimlessly. 

And when Ennui, the jewelled queen of these. 
Rose languid from her couch of poppied ease, 
With greeting such as indolence could spare, 

I fled aghast, the humblest tool to seize. 
And as its strokes with music filled the air, 
Peace spread her wings in holy blessing there. 



[102] 



ADVERSITY 

When glad Fortuna, as a friend to thee, 
Her more than liberal spoils before thee brings. 
Beware the serpent, slyly hid, which stings 
The soul with poison of Prosperity. 

Thou never mayst revealing visions see, 

Nor mount with seraphs on immortal wings. 
Unless within thy deepest being springs 
Some tear-fed fountain of Adversity. 

The steel that Florence drove in Dante's heart 
He fashioned to a lyre, whereon with ease 
He deathless rose above the hells of hate; 

And when life-wearied* Milton sat apart, 

Lonely and blind, he swept those organ keys 
Whose tones from age to age reverberate. 



[103] 



MY SONNET PRISON 

Full oftentimes my friends have said to me: 
"Give o'er the sonnet, since thou dost but lie 
At leaden length beneath its narrow sky* — 
A slave imprisoned when thou mightst be free. 

Though true it is the masters loved by thee 
Have in that cage sung strains that cannot die, 
Yet they were those who could all bonds defy. 
And soar at will in Art's immensity." 

Then I to them: "No eagle's wings are mine. 
That tempt the vastness of immortal song. 
To rest at last on fame-encrowned years. 

Leave me my prison bars, to me divine. 
Where with the Muse I have communed so long, 
And on her breast have shed memorial tears." 



[104] 



ROME 

A strange-eyed Eagle fiercely tore its way 
From out the breast of Latium, and began 
At once to feed upon the blood of man, 
And grow enormously from day to day. 

Its maddened craving nought had power to stay, 
Though down its throat the gore in rivers ran. 
And though so hugely grown its wings did span 
The world itself that trembled 'neath their sway. 

At last made weak from surfeiting on woes, 
And urged no more by War's infuriate cry. 
The monstrous thing was rended by its foes; 

And yet it died not, nor can ever die, 

For they that felt the mangling of its claw 
Still conquered lie beneath its deathless Law. 



[105] 



BY THE ROADSIDE 

From root to leaf each merry-hearted tree 
Breathes the sweet air as with divine delight, 
And even the clouds, o'ercome by beauty's might. 
But swell the woodland's deep-drawn ecstasy; 

And yonder horsemen jewelled in the light, 
Shout to the sky in wantonness of glee. 
As though for them no future could there be 
Of mad despair's insufferable night. 

With weary feet, and heart sore charged with woe, 
A woman sits the grass-fringed road beside, 
Deep in her soul the iron of the years. 

"Ah, joyous ones," she sighs, "could ye but know 
What bitter ruth will clip your soaring pride, 
Ye would return and blend with mine your 
tears!" 



[106] 



MORNING 

Deep-brooding Night has done its worst and best, 
And once again we front the new-born Day, 
Where now the sickled moon with lessening ray 
Hangs low upon the sky's auroral breast. 

The earth, soft-garmented in robes of gray, 
Drinks heaven's sweet dew with such delightful 

zest. 
She fain would see time held a prisoner lest 
The sun should sweep her present joys away. 

Home kindles now its necessary fires, 
Whose shafts of smoke, that gently pierce the air. 
Like incense seem in worship of the Morn. 

And as we list to these far-sounding lyres. 
So great all grows, so most divinely fair. 
The soul, fresh-winged, upsoars as if reborn. 



[107] 



NIGHT 

As oft of old, I watched the sun leap o'er 
The golden barriers of the farthest West, 
And saw the stars on heaven's deep azure breast 
In splendor blaze as never seen before; 

And then upon mine ear began to pour. 
In waves innumerous that knew no rest. 
The sharp, sweet notes of myriad ones that blest 
My inmost soul with more than music's lore: 

Unnoted these great stars glow all the day. 
Unheard these tiny insects chirp their lay — 
Eclipsed by louder sound, by brighter light. 

Thus many a sweet and patient one of earth 

Shines on, sings on, unmarked her priceless worth 
Till she has glorified Misfortune's night. 



[108] 



MYSTERY 

What notes of mystery in our being sound! — 
The unimaginable depths of space; 
The multitudinous worlds in pauseless race 
To distant goals beyond all dreaming's bound; 

This orb of ours whereon man sits encrowned 
A God and Devil — void of any place 
Where Life and Death meet not in fierce 

embrace, 
To what deep purpose thought has never found. 

There is no great or small: this grain of sand 
Its secret holds, as does the shaping hand 
Which fast cements it in the building's wall; 

And this vain butterfly, that only can 
In winged rapture hasten to its fall. 
Mysterious is as thy great soul, O Man. 



[109] 



THE RECORD 

When thy stilled hands lie folded on thy breast, 
As some day they will be at death's desire, 
What praise could wake the silence of thy rest. 
What censure rouse thy indignation's fire? 
O moment incommunicably dread! 
For then how mend life's slightest broken thread. 
Or kiss to warmth the love by thee betrayed. 
Or slay the least of those thy passions bred. 
Or haste with joy some fallen one to aid, 
And set the crown of hope upon his head? 

What's done is done, on lines thyself hast laid; 
Nor canst thou scape the forfeit to be paid: 
No deed of thine can hope for funeral pyre. 
Nor can Time's flood with still increasing ire 
Erase one record thou hast ever made. 
From man's memorial tablets it may fade; 
But on the book the Eternal Justice keeps. 
With omnipresent eye that never sleeps, 
'Twill be emblazoned through unending years 
Though grieved contrition shed a sea of tears. 



[110] 



IN A CHURCH 

Tile-roofed and low it meekly stands, 

The loving work of loving hands, 

And views, from out its cross-crowned tower. 

Its garden plot of tree and flower. 

Within, madrona trees, love-slain. 
With joy renewed live once again. 
To hold, in still unwearied arms. 
The naked ceiling's modest charms. 

A holy hush is in the air, 
As though the spirit's essence there 
Had been distilled and entered all 
That lay within the sacred wall. 

The song is sung, the prayer is said. 
The Book, and sermon thence, are read. 
While from the wings of Peace outspread 
The balm of blessedness is shed. 



[Ill] 



THE HAPPINESS OF THIS WORLD 

AFTER PLANTIN, SIXTEENTH CENTURY 

A spacious house to have, proportioned as is due, 
A garden where the trellis breathes with fragrant 

vine. 
Few servitors, few children, fruits and flavorous 

wine. 
In quiet to possess a wife that loves but you; 

All quarrels, debts, amours and lawsuits to eschew, 
With kin not much to share, for nothing more to 

pine. 
The favors of the Great contented to resign. 
Your every plan to form on model just and true; 

Exempt from vain ambitions, unconstrained to live, 
To worship's holy rites your deepest self to give. 
The passions to subdue until obedient they; 

To keep the judgment strong, the spirit calm and 

free. 
In every stress of labor still your prayers to say, 
This is with faith to wait serenely death's decree. 



[112] 



THE GENERATIONS 

Deep-hearted Ocean, thou dost mock the years 
As one that glories in immortal youth, 
Untorn by time's inexorable tooth, 
Unmoved by war's or ruin's blood and tears. 

The snow-clad peaks, the towering domes man 
rears. 
Feel at their core decay's relentless ruth. 
While thou — great symbol of faith-crowned 

truth, — 
Securely bidest, free of doubts and fears. 

And so, the Sea of Life rolls endless on. 
From out the fecund womb of eldest yore. 
Sparkling with joys, or gloomed with pains and 
woes. 

The generations one by one have gone. 

While still that Sea, which all their bubbles bore, 
Unhasting, yet unpausing, ebbs and flows. 



[113] 



CHRISTMAS BELLS 

Ring out, O heartsome Christmas Bells, 

Ring clear, and deep, and long, 
Till every noblest feeling swells 

To crush the mean and wrong; 
Till love, with her angelic train. 

Encamps within the soul. 
And bids her most melodious strain 

Throughout its chambers roll; 
Till raging ires' 
Pernicious fires 
In all the lands die down and cease, 
While reigns supreme the King of Peace. 

Ring out, ye Christmas Bells! 

Ring out, O sacred Christmas Bells, 

Ring far, and loud, and long. 
Till once again within us swells 
That old, earth-given song. 
First heard beneath the wondrous ray 

Which led the Magians where 
An infant all divinely lay. 

And breathed immortal air; 
Till we shall heed 
His simple creed. 
And learn, as on we stumbling go. 
To love is better than to know. 

Ring out, ye Christmas Bells! 

[114] 



Ring out, memorial Christmas Bells, 
Ring sweet, and low, and long. 
Till every bosom gently swells 

With thoughts, in grieving throng, 
Of brightsome eyes that fondly shone 

On ours this hallowed day. 
Of lips that spake with tenderest tone. 
Now passed from earth away; 
But while we hear 
The bells ring clear. 
Those eyes again with fondness shine. 
Those lips bespeak a joy divine. 

Ring out, ye Christmas Bells! 



[115] 



CHRISTMAS HYMN 

O Christ, on this thy natal day, 
As oft before, we fain would pray; 
And as the bells in laud of thee 
Ring joyous over land and sea. 
With every feeling sounding back 
Along our lives' eventful track 
That led from thee, ah, let us dare 
To fill our starving souls with prayer. 

Give us the passion-conquering might 

In every stress to do the right; 

And should we fall, as like we may. 

Help us to front another day. 

Add strengthening light to our weak eyes 

For them to view fresh splendors rise, 

And see that at our very feet 

The richest things may lie complete. 

Oh, lift us in thy blessed arms 
Above the fear of loud alarms 
To where the flower of courage grows 
On hope-crowned heights that duty knows, 
Till thrilled with that supporting air, 
No longer dreaming of despair, 
We shall go on from day to day 
Despite all lions in our way. 



[116] 



Oh, give to us such spirit-needs 
As teach the scorn of hates and greeds, 
And light within our breast the fires 
Of wisdom-hearted, high desires; 
Of love for all without constraint, 
Of love that dares not halt nor faint. 
Though it lead us, as it led thee, 
Along the road to Calvary. 

May we with thee so closely live 
As that we freely can forgive. 
Although our heart be torn by one 
The best beloved beneath the sun, 
And though the friendship built of old 
With rarest gems and purest gold 
Be prostrate laid, and we remain 
In irremediable pain. 

O Christ, on this thy holiest day. 
Accept our homage as we pray; 
Upon us pour thy healing balm. 
Till every pulse, serenely calm. 
And tuned to love, undaunted beats 
With harmony's ambrosial sweets, 
While centred in our souls increase 
The priceless treasures of thy peace. 



[117] 



FAITH 

Though man be lost in maze of mystery's land, 
'Tis his to feel if not to understand, 
And hear the heartening voice that ever sings 
Of all the deep divinity of things. 



WORK AND SERVICE 

Through work and service thou mayst see 
The inmost heart of liberty. 
And make thy sum of days to be 
One fused organic unity. 



THE MYSTIC 

In symboled beauty all appears 
To him in nature as in art. 
The while in ecstasy he hears 
Bright angels singing in his heart. . 
Oh, would we had some sight of his 
To see life's glory as it is. 



[118] 



NOT DEAD 

The poets all are dead, the critic cries, 

Save those that do but feed upon the great. 
Who through the years have kept empurpled 

state 
Beneath the radiance of adoring eyes; 

That now the Muse her benison denies; 

That thought no more with winged word can 

mate, 
And breathing music's deep delight create 
The songs that Art eternally will prize. 

Not so: the poet now, as ever, sings, 
And still shall sing, for all who care to hear, 
Ecstatic strains his very blood has wrought. 

Each Present hath its jewel-hearted things 
Whereby it lives; but oft the Gods are near, 
When our beclouded sight beholds them not. 



[119] 



LIFE'S BLEND 

Fret not, O vainly striving soul, 
For that thou mayst not reach thy goal, 
Or that the mists of evil bar 
From thee the light of many a star; 
For as we watch life's myriad streams. 
And sound the deepness of our dreams. 
This truth of truths we learn to feel. 
Beyond all reasoning to conceal. 
That the divinely ordering Will 
Gives neither Good alone, nor 111, 
The sceptre of unmixed control. 
But that in blended wave they roll 
Throughout creation's star-set whole. 



THE POEM 

All Beauty's magic-weaving airs 
Blow through the Poet's answering soul, 
Till thrilled with ecstasy he dares 
The building of some flawless whole. 



[120] 



LIFE'S JEWELS 

Seek not life's jewels where the poppies grow, 
Nor where Desire, all passion-poisoned, rears 
Her luring domes, but in the heart of woe. 
With shores far washed by sanctifying tears. 



RICHES 

All that life's ocean infinitely bears 
Of joys beyond all measure may be thine. 
For everything is his who nobly dares. 
And he that truly serves is then divine. 



QUESTION 

Outside, the rain is dreary. 
Inside, my heart is weary, 
Outside, the winds are sighing. 
Inside, my hopes are dying; — 
O Earth, where is thy beauty? 
O Soul, where is thy duty? 



[121] 



AMBITION 

* Long have I sued, and still have sued in vain; — 
My one and only love, why dost thou wreak 
Thy scorn upon me? Wilt thou never speak 
The word to ease my heart's compelling pain?" 

"If thou'lt be brave," said she, "thy sorrow's rain 
Shall breed a harvest; look! seest thou yon peak 
That lifts at dizzy height its snowy beak? 
Bear me to that, and thou my heart mayst 
drain." 

Upon his back he took the tempting maid. 
And upward went; up and still up he strode, 
The distant, glittering peak his constant guide; 

Still up, o'er Alp on Alp, he strained, nor stayed 
Till to the pinnacle he bore his load — 
Then like an idiot laughed . . . and gasping . . . 
died. 



[122] 



IN ALL THE DAYS 

The generations come and go 
In immemorial, ghostly show; 
They pass, and pass, and are no more 
Than are the leaves of eldest yore 
That wintry winds blew to and fro. 

What toils and moils were theirs to know, 
What withered blooms were theirs to grow. 
What dust made up their treasured store 
In all the days! 

And yet the streams of life still flow, 
No evil stalks but meets its foe, 
The Muse still guards her golden lore. 
While deathless Love still hovers o'er 
The anguished bed of many a woe. 
In all the days! 



UNKISSED 

O lips that moan unkissed 
Beneath Love's luring sky. 
What raptures you have missed. 
What pangs have passed you by! 



[123] 



ARRIA 

"I hear, and shake not, that thou art decreed 
By thine own miserable hand to die — 
Now, when thy fortunes blossom and the eye 
Of fate beams bright as with prophetic meed; 

And why shak'st thou in this thy spirit's need 
When Death and Caesar stand relentless by? 
Arouse thy soul till thy defiant cry 
Proclaims once more our matchless Roman 
breed."— 

"O wife, to close this day my book of years 
Is unimagined pain; this proffered steel 
The horror's sum of horrors unto me." — 

"Give me the blade, that so thy griefs and fears 
May drown in mine own blood. I strike . . . 

and feel 
No hurt, my Paetus . . . now the point's for 
thee." 



[124] 



PERPETUA 

My father, plead no more; — wouldst have me wed 
Remorse in life, and then in flames to lie. 
When from the blood of Caesar's circus I 
Can leap to Heaven to be chapleted? 

Has not our holy Saint Ignatius said 

God's wheat we are, that, for his purpose high. 
And in his boundless love, should be ground by 
The teeth of monsters into Christ's pure bread? 

Then welcome the arena's glorious ruth; 
I long to feel the lion's rending tooth 
Till all my body reeks with horrors fell. 

And yet, dear father, ere from thee I go. 
It touches me to think of that great woe 
Which will be thine eternally in Hell. 



[125] 



DREAM MUSIC 

O spirit mine, arouse thee from a sleep 
Which only sloth or weakness can prolong, 
And on the dazzling mountain-peaks of song 
Let Beauty's legions in thy heart's blood leap; 

Then list thou to the harmonies that sweep 
The infinite paths of infinite life along. 
Content to shrine but one of that vast throng 
In music all the years will love to keep. . . . 

This luring ecstasy, how vain! how vain! 
But though my reason's every tongue upbraid, 
I yet am bound a prisoner to its will; 

For yesternight mine ear caught such a strain, 
By dream's own fingers on my spirit played, 
That its melodious raptures shake me still. 



[126] 



MEMORIES 

The darksome waves of all thy fourscore years 
Break on thy bosom's solitary shore, 
Where mid the wreckage of memorial lore 
Sorrow sheds fast her unavailing tears. 

As through the long-drawn time thy vision peers, 
What hopes pass by that mock thee as of yore, 
What fragrant blossoms, gone forevermore, 
Lie heaped upon thy heart's uncounted biers! 

Oh, tell me gentle lady, from thy chair, 
That holds thee now in Memory's thraldom 

chained. 
Have nought but toils and pains been thy 
increase? — 

Ah, friend, not so; some of my days were fair; 
Much have I lost, yet much have also gained. 
And even in Grief's own cup have tasted peace. 



[127] 



QUESTION 

I sit and muse in these autumnal days, 
Companioned by the wistful, falling leaves, 
As now the far-gone year in passing grieves. 
And on our hearts his thin hand sadly lays. 

But through the sombrous web November weaves 
We see the Spring her verdurous banners raise 
Mid bursting bloom and songsters' joyful praise. 
While every clod with expectation heaves. 

The leaves are fluttering from my life's old tree. 
Fast withering now, yet once all freshly fair. 
And soon dread Winter will have stripped it bare; 

And then, without deserving, will it see 

Another Spring, and wondering breathe an air 
That tells of glories that are yet to be? 



[128] 



VACANCY 

Unchanging vacancy now fills alone 
This chambered house: no sorrowing voice, or 

gay, 
Nor woman's ministries, make full the day 
That love once clasped in her bejewelled zone; 

Life, with its myriad miracles, has flown, 

While all the garden, where the breeze dared 

play 
With many a sun-kissed rose, lies nude and gray, 
Save where with tangled brier overgrown. . . . 

O Soul, art thou the house thus emptied quite 
Of all the glories which erstwhile did thrill 
Each nook and cranny of thy golden rooms? 

Is now thy garden fallen into blight, 

And do the strenuous winds no longer will 
To scatter skyward thy despairing glooms? 



[129] 



O MOMENT STAY! 

O moment, stay, so beautiful thou art! 
Exclaimed the Faust immortal Goethe drew, 
As consummation lit his raptured view. 
And peace, long-tossed, slept sweetly in his heart. 

Alas! it came but only to depart; 

For death seized Faust, the while Mephisto's crew 
Sprang at his soul, once false, but now so true. 
It warded off hell's most envenomed dart. 

The moments stay not, nor have ever stayed: 

They pass, and we pass with them, closely bound 
By mystery's chain in endless, rhythmic round; 

But nought is lost, nor penalty unpaid. 
While work and service shall be nobly crowned 
Though he that wrought them in the dust be laid. 



[130] 



THE SOUL 

Who is it dares disturb my rest 

In this luxuriant poppy field, 

Where languorous airs within my breast 

All rare delights of music yield? 

I am thy Soul! — Up from thy bed, 
And sweep the film from out thine eye. 
So that by consecration led, 
I may be saved that's like to die. 



VOICES 

From out the azure's depths serenely falling 
At times I hear celestial voices calling, 

And then in spirit-flight 

I soar from murky Night, 
To seek their presence in the fields of Light. 

And by their marvellous tones the air is shaken. 
Until I feel my fearsome soul awaken 

To faiths that set it free; 

And calm as one might be 
I dare to ask, what death can come to me? 



[131] 



GHOSTS 

The ghosts that come from out the years, 
Dream-winged and purged of passion's fears, 
Troop round me now as oft before. 
In love to lead my footsteps o'er 
The paths my heart of heart endears. 

What hope-wreathed joy on joy appears. 
What bloomy cheeks no anguish sears, 
What vasty skies wherein to soar, 
O time of old! 

Their voices die upon mine ears, 
I cry to them, but no one hears, 
While other ghosts around me pour — 
The ghosts of Now that madly roar. 
And mock my unrelieving tears, 
O time of old! 



[132] 



THE DIVINE ORDER 

Dost thou let vastness overwhelm thy thought 
When led along imagination's way, 
Nor dare to dream that some propitious day 
Will bring thee gems with newer radiance 
fraught? 

Yon star's no farther with its beckoning ray, 
Whose distance science never yet has wrought. 
Than that alluring rose thy heart besought. 
Within thy lady's loving hand to lay. 

The faintest music of intoning spheres 

May beat harmonious on thy raptured ears. 
While glories infinite thine eyes may see. 

Soar where thou wilt on world-compelling wings. 
Still canst thou list the voice divine of things 
Proclaim thou art in them and they in thee. 



[133] 



CONCORD 

This graceful blade of springing grass behold, 
And this poor, stolid weed that droops near by, 
Then range once more with wonder-ravished eye 
O'er worlds on worlds through endless reaches 
rolled; 

Look on this tree whose verdurous leaves enfold 
Mysterious joys, where, as we dreaming lie. 
Dear Memory breathes her softly-saddened sigh 
On past-gone days of purple and of gold; — 

All these diverse ones in thy bosom meet 
Accordant to each other and to thee. 
As to all else in God's immensity: 

In every atom Music hath her seat. 

While the vast Universe itself doth beat 
In tune to one eternal harmony. 



[134] 



CAN THIS BE DAY? 

Can this be day? The stars have fled; 
Dawn's banners brighten overhead; 
The wagons roll along the street, 
And men go by with hastening feet; — 
Ah, yes, it must be day. 

But come and see where cold she lies, 
Death's fingers on her once-bright eyes; 
With pallid lips that cannot stir; 
The aching mother bent o'er her; — 
Ah, no, 'tis night, not day. 



THE PITY OF IT 

How bloomed round her the flowers of nurturing 

care, 
How breathed on her Home's kindliest summer-air, 
How softly smooth her daily paths were made. 
From that sweet moment Life first gave her breath 
Until that bitter time her dear head laid 
Its lilied beauty in the lap of Death! 



[135] 



MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES 

In mystery's face I could but peer 
When she my heart of heart did fill, 
And yet her pulseless beauty here 
Proclaims a mystery greater still. 



CHASTENING 

A woman, great of form and face, 
Who seemed to be of Sorrow's race, 
Led me away from sun-bright air. 
And from the trees and blossoms fair. 
To lonely depth of solemn wood 
Where but the sombre cypress stood. 

She gently breathed a wordless prayer. 
Then left me strangely dreaming there; 
And when I waked, a newer grace 
Was round me as with love's embrace. 
And forth I went in heartened mood 
Beneath the spell of chastening's good. 



[136] 



THE FOG ROLLS IN 

The fog rolls in as it has rolled 
For years that never can be told, 
And all the sky of sombre-gray 
Makes drearier still the dreary day; 

And hearts still ache 

Until they break, 
As it has been with Death alway. 

But though the fog be deeper rolled 
The sun's above it as of old; 
No sky can be so sombre-gray, 
But that the blue will have its way; 

And hearts will wake 

For love's dear sake, 
As it has been with Life alway. 



HER RESTING PLACE 

She rests not where the bending flowers 
Can spill their perfumes over her. 
But in the cells of loveliest flowers 
Her fleshly atoms once more stir. 
To give those blooms the brightest hue 
That e'er before their petals knew. 
While in the urn her ashes lie 
White as her soul that cannot die. 

[137] 



MOURN NOT 

Mourn not thy dead, although they may have shone 
With fondest radiance on thy lessening years, 
Nor sink appalled before the fatal shears 
That bid thy treasured ones to leave thee lone. 

Mourn not the seed thy hands have left unsown, 
That might have joyed in golden-gloried ears; 
Nor mourn thine evil hours, thy craven fears, 
Nor fortune's favors which thou couldst not own. 

All these are gone, nor canst thou call them back, 
Though on their far-receding, darksome track 
The voice of every grief were joined with thine. 

Then seize, new-hearted, on the living Now, 
And march straightforward, with unshaken vow. 
Beneath Hope's gladdening, promise-blazoned sign. 



[138] 



ROSES FOR HIM 

You that loved him, gather here 
Round his bier. 

Let the roses heaping rest 
On his breast. 

In his heart their sweets were hived 
While he lived, 

And he might unquiet be 
If that we 

Did not give his bed of death 
Their dear breath. 

Mid their fragrance let us say. 
As we pray. 

How he nursed a patient mood 
Filled with good — 

Good that flowed without an end 
To his friend; 

How, whatever stress might be. 
Equal he; 



[139] 



How with every breath he drew 
He was true; 

How he charmed us with a tone 
All his own, 

Stingless wit and ready sense 
Flowing thence; 

How he walked affection's ways 
All his days; 

And how Beauty's conquering art 
Held his heart, 

Till he seemed her very child 
Undefiled. 

Gather then with roses here 
Round his bier, 

And in heaps upon his breast 
Let them rest. 



[140] 



OUT OF THE SHADOW 

I would not have the world's regardless eyes 
Rest on this verse made consecrate with tears 
For one who in the spring-time of his years 
Sank down o'erburdened, never more to rise; 

But those alone whose unavailing cries 

Have risen like mine for all the heart endears 
I would have here to pause, and in his bier's 
Deep shadow share my bosom's agonies. 

Yet as Grief hands the bitter cup around, 
And deeper grows the shade's intensity. 
Our souls may hear some new, far-falling sound; 

And mid its throbs divine it then may be 
That Life will stream with richer thought, and 

we 
Deem Death a monarch with effulgence crowned. 



[141] 



TO DEATH 

Pray, who art thou so dread, whose evil threatening 

spear 
Bespeaks unnumbered victims in woe-breathing 

strife? .... 
The Ages call me Death; and shak'st thou not 

with fear? .... 
Ah no; thy spear's the key that opes the Gate of 

Life. 



IN THE CEMETERY OF ... . 

AFTER VICTOR HUGO 

The laughing living crowd by folly still is led, 
At times where pleasure rules, at times where 

anguish lies. 
But here these all forgotten, silent, lonely dead 
On me, a dreamer, fix their sad, regardful eyes. 

They know me to be man of solitary mood, 

A musing, strolling one that on the trees attends. 

The soul that sadly learns, from sorrow's countless 

brood. 
In trouble all begins, in peace all trouble ends! 

Ah, well they note the pensive, reverent mien of 
mine 

[142] 



Mid crosses, graves and boxwood, while they 

mutely list 
To all the dying leaves that 'neath my foot repine; 
And they have watched me dream in woods cool 

shades have kissed. 

blatant living ones of strife and mad unrest. 
My flowing voice falls better on these dead ones' 

ears! 
My lyre's sweet hymns that lie deep hidden in my 

breast 
That are but songs for you, for them are gushing 

tears. 

Forgotten by the living, nature still is theirs: 
In death's all silent garden, where we end our 

dreams, 
In more celestial garb, and calmer, dawn appears. 
The bird is lovelier still, the lily purer seems. 

'Tis there I live! — there pluck the rose of pallid 

face. 
Console with tombs that lie in desolation rent; 

1 pass, repass, the branches tenderly displace. 
And stir the sighing grass; — the dead they are 

content. 

'Tis there I dream; and roaming many a drowsed 
space, 

[143] 



With thought-enwidened eyes I marvellously see 
My very soul transformed as in some magic place, 
That mystery-filled reflects the vast immensity. 

'Tis revery's fond ideal fills my vision there, 
Floating in shining veil between the earth and me; 
And there my ingrate doubts are melted into 

prayer: 
For standing I begin and end upon my knee. 

The wandering beetles there I indolently watch, 
The wavering branches, forms, and color-glinting 

gleams. 
And on the fallen stones reposing love to catch 
The dazzlings of the flowers and of the myriad 

beams. 

As in the rock, whose hollow drips in sunless 

gloom. 
For drop of water seeks the thirsty, humble dove. 
So now my altered spirit seeks the darksome tomb, 
To drink, if but a sip, of faith, of hope and love. 



[144] 



RECONCILIATION 

Thou heart-bereaved, complaining mite, 
Why blink at God's eternal light, 
Why make an individual night 

Of cowardly despair? 
In the vast universe divine 
Sink every grief and woe of thine. 
And thou wilt nevermore repine. 

But sing in triumph there. 



IN TIME OF NOVEMBER 

The leaves are falling, falling, 
By autumn's breath embrowned; 

The restless winds are calling 
With ever saddening sound; 

And all the long-dead embers 

Of all my past Novembers 
Seem heaped in burial mound. 

But Memory joys in bringing 
Her loveliest blossoms there, 

With birds whose heartsome singing 
Dispels each dark despair; 

And then those embers' fires 

Reflame with June's desires, 
Till Life grows newly fair. 

[145] 



REFUGE 

The winds of Grief were driving him 
Upon the rocks Despair had reared, 
When in the distance, faint and dim, 
The Star of Poesy appeared; 
And as toward her his face he turned. 
With hope and courage in his breast, 
She then with brighter fulgence burned. 
To light him to the Port of Rest. 



NOW 

Oh, do not wait till in the earth I lie 

Before thou givest me my rightful meed; 

Oh, do not now in coldness pass me by, 

And then cry praises which I cannot heed. 

If I have helped thee on thy weary way. 

Or lightened in the least thy burden's weight. 

Haste with love's tokens ere another day 

Shall pierce thee with the fatal words, "Too late." 

The present moment is thy time to live: 

The Past is gone, the Future may not be; 

If thou hast treasure of thy heart to give 

To hungry souls, bestow it speedily; — 

For sweet Love's sake, let not to-morrow's sun 
Tempt thee to wait before thou see it done. 



[146] 



ATTAINMENT 

We sigh for things we scarce may hope to gain, 
And which, if all our own, would give no peace; 
We vainly toil and struggle to release 
To knowledge nature's secrets; we complain 

That 'tis not given us to break some chain, 
To scale some peak, to win some golden fleece. 
To do some mighty deed whose light shall cease 
Only when moons no longer wax and wane. 

We thus pass heedless by life's crystal springs. 
And lose the blessing at our very hand 
That Faith and Love invincibly have won: 

For they proclaim with voice that deathless rings, 
No work is futile that is nobly planned, 
No deed is little if but greatly done. 



[147] 



WITH THE LARK 

Ah, mark 

That Meadow Lark, 

With note so silvery sweet, 

Skimming the golden sea of wheat 

As blithesome Dawn, in rosy-hued array. 

Shakes out the banner of the new-born day. 

Still on he goes with rapturous glee, 

A floating fount of melody. 

Oh, that my heart like his could beat 

In thoughtless joy complete; 

That under this balm-breathing sky, 

Without one question why. 

My soul in ravishment might rest 

On Beauty's radiant breast. 



[148] 



WITH THE EAGLE 

His eye 

Sweeps all the sky, 

As hard he grips the rock. 

Storm's ice-clad brood that round him flock 

But blow the fires of his undaunted breast, 

And forth he fares in ecstasy of quest. 

Still up he goes, to proudly fling 

His own against the thunder's wing. 

O Eagle of the mighty heart. 

Give me of what thou art: 

Breed in my soul thy lofty air. 

That it may nobly dare. 

And with unconquerable will 

Face every darkest ill. 



[149] 



CONCENTRATION 

Mark how the florist's cunning hand compels 
That weed unique, the strange chrysanthemum, 
To crown one lonely stalk whose blossomed sum 
To giant size and gorgeous beauty swells — 

The forces pulsing in its myriad cells 
Combining, as with certainty of doom. 
To build the structure of a single bloom, 
Wherein the plant its dazzling triumph tells. 

So shouldst thou have the will, O struggling soul, 
To hold thy thoughts and actions to the pole 
Of one predominant, exclusive aim; 

Then may thy stalk a wondrous blossom bear. 
Which shall for thee achievement's glory wear, 
And be to others as a sign of flame. 



[150] 



ENDURE THOU FALTERING SOUL 

Endure, thou faltering soul, thou shouldst endure: 
Though thou hast toiled and served unblest of 

gain; 
Though clamors mock thy peace; though fortune 

rain 
Deep- wounding blows on thee past hope of cure; 

Though hearts grow cold, while griefs have made 
thee poor 
In all save tears, till cumulative pain 
Dare proffer ease with death's too-tempting bane, 
E'en then, despairing soul, thou must endure. 

For lo, behold! all fellows are thy kin 
From vastest sun to tiniest atomy; 
Yea, all that was, and is, and shall be, in 

The mystery-breathing, great immensity. 

Where thou art challenged for thy needed part — 
Then forward with fresh courage in thy heart! 



[151] 



CONSECRATION 

Wouldst thou make happiness thy life's fond aim? 

Wouldst walk self-satisfied those paths alone 

Where fortune's perfume-freighted gales are 
blown? 

Or toil for men to adulate thy name? 
Wouldst madly seek the things by pleasure strown, 

Unheeding all their emptiness and shame? 

Or dare the fabric of thy soul to maim, 

Could lucre's millions only be thine own? 
If yea, oh, let that angel one austere. 

Called Consecration, lead thy wandering feet 

Where blessedness may evermore be thine: 
Christ's gift she is — to man so wondrous dear 

In service by her spirit made complete, 

That Peace is hers eternally divine. 



[152] 



COMPENSATION 

inimitably vast the ocean rolls 

Before me as its wreck-strewn shore I tread, 
And in its depths I view the unnumbered dead 
Who stare for aye at unaccomplished goals. 

So, round the earth my sorrowing sight controls 
The sea of life with waves from slaughter red. 
Which heave forevermore above the bed 
Where lie the hopes and aims of myriad souls. 

Yet in that ocean's breast the pulses beat 

Which send rich blood through every country's 

veins. 
To serve the good whatever may befall; 

And in this sea Joy still the heart constrains; 
Here Duty's jewels lie; and here Love's seat, 
Divine as that which broodeth over all. 



[153] 



MY MUSE 

If that my Muse may never proudly soar 
Above the summits where unwasting snows 
Are fellows of the stars; — if that she knows 
No swelling note of forest, sea, or shore; — 

If e'en no streamlet of melodious lore 

The tiniest craft of hers divinely shows; — 
Or not for her the lightest breeze that blows 
In voiceful harmony Parnassus o'er; — 

Yet her dear self I could not think to chide. 
Nor deem her less than some anointed saint 
Who guards my soul: sufficient unto me 

If in my deepest being she abide. 

To hold my wandering thoughts in sweet 

constraint. 
And all that's noblest give me sight to see. 



[154] 



SCORN NOT THE SINGER 

Scorn not the singer though his tremulous lay 
Ring not along the arches of the sky, 
Content the daisy's lowly sweets to try 
As o'er the mead it wings its modest way; 

For nectar-laden it may chance to stray 
Near some lone heart that beats to hopeless cry, 
And yielding sweetness as it passes by 
Give strength to struggle for another day. 

O Poesy, thou mightiest of the Nine, 
Now more than ever do we need the aid 
Of e'en the humblest votary of thine; 

Now when, as old ideals begin to fade. 
In stress of doubt we question the Divine, 
And mid its splendors dare to be afraid. 



[155] 



THE POET TO HIMSELF 

O foolish one, why crave the Orphean lyre? 
Canst thou awake its heart-delighting strains, 
Or hope, with all the cunning of thy pains. 
To shake the soul with thunders of thine ire? 

And shouldst thou strike the chords of all desire. 
Ah, who would pause to listen? — greeds, and 

gains. 
And ostentation's pride, choke virtue's veins, 
While spiritual things unwept expire. . . . 

Such words lack spice of wisdom: wouldst thou 
dare 
To give Life's rose in keeping of Despair, 
Or fear the Muse her deep-loved haunts may fly? 

The world is alway better than it seems. 
And if, indeed, a message in thee lie. 
Some one is hoping for it in his dreams. 



[156] 



THE MUSIC OF WORDS 

TENNYSON SAID IN ONE OF HIS TALKS THAT "PEOPLE 
DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE MUSIC OF WORDS" 

To give to Beauty her immortal meed 
As gemmed she lies immaculately fair; 
To paint the hopes that end in fell despair, 
While tones mellifluous every passion breed; 

To follow Fancy's fairy troop that lead 

Through vales of Dream embathed in drowsed 

air, 
Or on Imagination's heights to dare. 
What nectar-hearted, golden words we need — 

Such words as thine, thou muse-encrowned one, 
Who, like some inextinguishable sun. 
Shall light the heavens of man forevermore; 

Such words as Homer sent, long, long ago. 
With music winged, through Greece's heart of 

woe. 
Or such as Shakespeare made divinely soar. 



[157] 



THE PASSION FOR PERFECTION 

What deep desires are ours, what searching pains, 
To find the word we so supremely need; 
To frame a diction worthy Art's great meed, 
That winged with music bears undying strains! 

Our thought when bound in rhythm oft contains 
Such teasing imperfections, that we feed 
The hours in their cure, then inly bleed. 
For fear some vexing blemish yet remains. . . . 

Dear nymph, Perfection, how thou dost elude 
Thy fond pursuer! — seeming near, then far, 
Enticing ever with allurement sweet; 

Till after trial many a time renewed, 
He sees thee blaze a solitary star 
In some high, inaccessible retreat. 



[158] 



WHITHER 

Ah, my songs beloved, 
Whither do ye go? — 
O beloved Poet, 
That we cannot know. 

Who can tell what roses 
Will to-morrow bloom? 
Or what wings be folded 
In relentless gloom? 

We abide the future, 
As the greatest must — 
Sure to find the laurel. 
Or be less than dust. 



[159] 



THIS BOOK WAS PRINTED BY THE STANLEY- 
TAYLOR COMPANY AT SAN FRANCISCO IN THE 
MONTH OF MARCH AND YEAR NINETEEN HUN- 
DRED AND SEVEN. SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN 
COPIES WERE PRINTED OF WHICH SIXTY-FIVE 
ARE ON ALTON MILLS HAND-MADE PAPER AND 
CONTAIN A SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF THE 
AUTHOR. ONLY FIFTY OF THESE ARE FOR SALE 



:ViAY 15 190? 



,/lAY 15 1907 



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